After a restful night’s sleep, it was up and at ‘em and back to Johannesburg for another day on the red bus tour, via eggs benny in the mall near the Gautrain station. It’s also very close to the university and the café we chose, tucked around the back, did a decent brekkie.

Our mission today was to take photos from the bust for the first couple of hours as we wound our way through the city and inner suburbs of Johannesburg so we found a good position on the top of the open bus and snapped away as we again wound our way through the market stalls and hawkers past the historic stops and past some excellent street art.

As the bus wound its way through the city, and I listened to the history of Johannesburg from gold rush to apartheid, I couldn’t help but notice something else, something not even mentioned in the audio track. Johannesburg was more or less built in the 60s and 70s and has more examples of brutalist architecture than anywhere I’ve ever seen. Some of them were less impressive than others but there were some interesting monoliths amongst them. And that includes the university of South Africa building in Pretoria. It is a magnificent example of what can be done with brutalist architecture – a perfectly balanced structure set against stark blue skies and surrounded by greenery. (Concrete Jungle – The Specials – I discovered The Specials in about year 10 at high school and have never looked back. And this track is just right for Johannesburg in so many ways.)

Like many cities, the social fabric of the place reveals itself in some of the most unexpected ways. One of the biggest challenges in modern South Africa, aside from stretching equality across the economic as well as racial divide, is combatting HIV infection rates. It is one of the things that struck me at the apartheid museum – Mandela’s commitment to this cause late in life and the revelation that his only son died from AIDS. And in large part this comes down to education about STDs and protection. This concern is also borne out in the disturbing number of ads for abortions that you see plastered around the inner city.

After an hour and a half snapping away, we got off the bus to do the Mining Walk which took us through a well-manicured shady part of Jozi in the mining industry quarter, all with plenty of big mining companies. We looked around at the mining equipment and sat down for a chocolate milkshake before taking on the SAB World of Beer – soon to be known as Dan’s version of the swine museum.

First, we had to hear about the history of beer – from its invention in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Sudan. This was followed by a cartoon about how beer saved Egypt. Then we got to something a bit interesting – the story of how early South African tribes brewed beer in the clay pots the ANC stadium was modelled on. It was the women who brewed the beer, despite that fact they weren’t allowed to drink it. And apparently (according to the World of Beer) a woman’s brewing ability was a factor in her being chosen as a wife. From here we moved through beer brewing in Europe to the invention of Pilsner to a pub where we got to taste the (SAB) beer. Then, to add a South African touch they had created a shebeen – essentially a makeshift pub/bottleshop in a home in the townships. People living in the townships were eventually given permission to buy alcohol in the 10s but weren’t allowed to sell it. The shebeens are probably the township equivalent of an American speakeasy. From here it was on to the brewing process – roasting the barley, growing the hops and all the rest of the steps until we got to the end (mercifully) which was a five-minute film about bottling which was realty just a montage promo for the beer company. At the end, we did get two free drinks – I chose a lychee cider, which was quite nice – and some snacks. (Tony’s theme – The Pixies – even their silly songs, like this one, are worth a listen.)

Once again we had exhausted our time (the beer tour took about two hours all up) so we completed the bus loop, and boarded the Gautrain back to Pretoria. We were masters of Uber by now and had no problems getting ourselves home. One of our fabulous hosts had made the trek to the Asian grocery store and was busily preparing a delicious dinner of chicken katsu curry, cabbage salad and rice. At the end of a busy couple of days, it was time to pack for the next leg of our adventure – the overnight train to Cape Town.