Jo'burg

Today, I spent some time in the biggest city in SA, commonly known as Jo'burg. I got to interact a little more with people. I found a most honest taxi driver. I also went out at night alone in the center of the crime ridden city and returned safe... from across the street. It's a start, right? Finding a taxi back to chilled Pretoria was another issue. I have never seen so many people in such a concentrated place. I had read that places in poor countries were considered overcrowded because it is full of poverty not so much as people, but I beg to disagree, at least in that instance. I have been to Tokyo a city six times the size of Jo'burg and walked many of its streets, only one street could be comparable in terms of density, the busiest street in Tokyo I have read. I was fortunate to be waved at by two guys who made the second remark about my height and also about how strange it was for a handsome white man to be without car. Faced with such flattery I couldn't refuse buying them a beer in exchange for them walking me to the taxi station and protecting me from the tsotsi. The taxi station happened to be right around the corner...
The concentration reached a second apex when it went from just people to taxis. Imagine the Japanese subway full to the bream, replace the train with a parking structure and the people with taxis and more people, it might give you an idea. It is just as amazing to witness how people in Japan manage to gush out of the trains without any collisions, as it is to see taxis here getting on the road without collisions with other taxis or people.

PS so far, I haven't felt threatened, I have been chary by any mean but never felt threatened. Acknowledging that I haven't been to a poor area per say, it is still remarkable that even with a density probably in the hundreds of thousands per square kilometer I have been asked for money only twice, half what I would usually expect in a relatively affluent city in the richest country in the world (not counting the ones who asks you twice or more within the hour). That might be a cultural shock?