5. Blog | Half time

Wow, in the meantime it is already half time for us. Time flies here and we have already become very accustomed to life down here. Or should we rather say up here 😉. Because many do not know, but in Johannesburg, more precisely at Andy’s home, we are 1,623 meters above sea level. In comparison, with us in Uzwil it is just 560 meters.
Johannesburg is the largest city in South Africa with 5.635 million inhabitants. However, during these three months we do not live directly in the city itself. We are in a small sub-region called Northriding, just above Johannesburg.
South Africa has a bit of a different system when it comes to regions and capitals. There is a total of nine provinces, which can be compared to cantons in Switzerland – only much larger. Each province has its own capital. So the province „Western Cape“ has the capital „Cape Town“. The capital of the Eastern Cape province is Bhisho, etc. We live in the province of Gauteng and there, logically, Johannesburg is the capital. Gauteng is also the largest province with a total of 15.8 million inhabitants. So in summary we have nine provinces and nine capitals, right? Not quite, because South Africa has designated three additional superior capitals, each responsible for one of the three powers. Cape Town is the capital of the legislative branch, Pretoria is the headquarters of the executive branch, and the seat of the judiciary is in Bloemfontein.
South Africa has, except for the summer, similar temperatures in comparison to Switzerland. The summer here is about 7 degrees higher, but the winter is also cold – just without snow. And the seasons are also completely turned upside down: When it’s summer in your country, we have winter here, your fall is our spring, Christmas is celebrated here in summer and when it’s spring here, the leaves fall from the trees.
In South Africa, we had exactly the same time as in Switzerland until last weekend. But since you changed the time on the night of October 30, we are now one hour ahead of you.
We will tell you more about the history of South Africa, regarding apartheid and the like, in the next blogs.

Second visit from Rouven’s relatives

Bungee-Jumping

To anticipate a bit: We logically discussed before we left what all we wanted to do during our stay. One idea was bungee jumping between the „Soweto Towers“. However, we were not of firm conviction yet, as we first wanted to make sure how safe bungee jumping probably is in this country. After Andy explained to us that it is actually very safe, he has never read of an accident anywhere, and we had nothing big planned for Sunday (October 30), we decided to go. „If there was ever a fatal accident there or anything else, they certainly wouldn’t be allowed to do it anymore,“ Andy said. In addition, he said that he himself would not jump, but he would photograph and film us with his camera. With a somewhat queasy feeling we sat in the car and drove off.
The Soweto Towers are former cooling towers for a coal-fired power plant that opened in 1955 and was finally shut down in 1998. Today the towers are for entertainment. You can bungee jump between the cooling towers, do a free fall inside the left tower from a height of about forty meters or just have a drink at the bar.
After about a 30-minute drive, we saw the townships of Soweto, as well as the towers, which stand out neatly at over one hudred meters, since the townships consist only of single-story houses. So when we finally arrived, we saw them in full: the Soweto Towers. The towers from which we will jump one hundred meters into the depth. At least that was the plan.
Loose music was playing in the background and as we walked to the registration house, we kept seeing some jumpers. There were a few people watching, clapping and cheering. As we walked past one group, a woman asked us if we were going to jump too. We both nodded to which her response was „Oh, gosh.“ We turned and kept walking, thinking we hadn’t just heard that. Once we arrived at the registration building, we were weighed and had to fill out some slips of paper. There is no pre-registration at this jumping spot – you just show up, sign up, pay and jump. A jump costs 630 Rand which is just 34 CHF. For comparison: In Switzerland you pay about 150 CHF. If you want to have photos and videos, the price rises relatively quickly to over 1,000 Rand. Good for us, because Andy had his camera with him and could photograph us well from below. The cashier said, among other things, that we would not get the money back if we did not jump. „Well, how do we know now?“, we thought to ourselves and finally paid.
After the climbing harness was attached to us, we got a short briefing and waited a while, we got into the lift with seven other people, which runs along the wall from the left tower. Since this works with three motors, stops briefly at each motor change and continues, we were all pretty scared at the beginning and thought, whether this is really so safe. When we finally reached the top, we realized the height and had a huge respect. Now we knew it was starting:
Urs got to it first and ran onto the bridge, while the rest sat down on the left tower and enjoyed the view. On the way to the drop zone, the bridge wobbles a bit. However, since the net even rises above you, this was not a problem – at least not for us. At the jump plate you also sit down and wait until the rubber rope from the previous jumper is up again. At the plate there are also three helpers who do their job really well. They talk to you, keep you busy and calm you down when necessary. For both of us, the latter was not necessary. They also make sure that you are always secured, i.e. at least one carabiner is attached to you. As soon as the rope reaches the top, the second carabiner is attached and secured. After that it’s a matter of standing up, walking slowly to the edge, stretching out your arms and letting them tilt forward. That’s exactly what Urs did, and Rouven watched him plummet one hundred feet. „I just thought to myself: are we completely stupid?“, Urs said to Rouven quite euphorically after the jump.
After that, Rouven ran to the drop zone. Honestly, I (meaning Rouven) thought I would be more nervous standing up there. But somehow you fade out everything, concentrate only on yourself. Probably the helpers also take one this overcoming fear, because they, as already explained above, talk to you again and again. Once both carabiners are attached, it’s a breeze. Rouven first wanted to look down to let everything sink in again before he jumped off, but one of the helpers immediately lifted his chin so that he could look straight ahead. Again they do this specially so that a person with a great fear of heights does not faint. Then he stretched out his arms and let himself tilt forward.
Who knows bungee jumping, knows that due to the physics, one is pulled up again with the rubber rope and can fly down again. You do this for 1.5 minutes until you reach the bottom, where you are stopped and brought down by more helpers. Rouven immediately ran to Urs after all the clearing. An exchange followed and we both concluded that you don’t just have that normal adrenaline feeling in your stomach during a steep roller coaster. This adrenaline feeling was different here. Not just in the stomach, but rather all over the body. However, because the intensity was so great, we didn’t feel the pure adrenaline. You felt a completely different, new feeling – a feeling that is completely indescribable. You think you could really fly and you only have this one word in your head: WOW!
After all this discussion, we walked with Andy to the bar, whereupon we all toasted together. We had to process this entire process first, so we ended up staying there for a while watching other jumpers before heading back.
This day was a huge highlight for us and we especially thank Andy who came along and captured the moments on digital.