Out of Johannesburg

We are currently on the bus, driving out of the Johannesburg area to Kruger Park, where will be for the next three days.  As we drive out of the city and into the country, we are surrounded by golden grass-covered savannahs and gently rolling fields of dried corn stalks as far as the eye can see.  They call this kind of land the ‘high veldt,’ because it is dry and relatively flat and at quite a high elevation, about a mile above sea level.  Off in the distance, we see a long and low purple mountain range.  We also see, at regular intervals, large power plants, some clearly coal burning, and some ringed with cooling towers.  The landscape is crossed by huge power lines, most leading back to Johannesburg but some heading out in other directions.  When the new democratic government came to power in 1994, they faced a huge infrastructure crisis.  The apartheid regime had supplied power to the white areas of cities, and to the business districts and downtowns, but not to the townships that housed millions of African people.  The old government controlled electricity and water as a way to control the townships.  But when the new South Africa emerged, there was not a large enough infrastructure or power-grid to supply electricity to the entire country.  But the demand was huge and immediate.  They had to build a large number of power plants very quickly, and we can see the evidence of that as we drive along.  All of South Africa’s energy demands are still not met, and they have recently turned to solar energy sources, although we haven’t yet seen a solar power plant.