johannesburg: chameleon village

After the short drive-through round the Lion Park that was a short distance away from Shumba Valley Lodge where we stayed, we drove a bit further to Chameleon Village where it's full of stalls selling local handmade crafts.






Here's how the entrance looks like. The whole place actually reminds me of Bangkok's Suan Lum night market.




It was quite dark and gloomy in some corners. And I dared not linger too long.




I was checking out some of the handpainted masks.




And the storekeeper asked to take a photo with me. It was all just a gimmick to make me feel comfortable so I would stay longer, browse more and hopefully buy something. My Aussie colleagues were harrassed to death. They had to come up with weird excuses such as "All my money is with my wife and I've lost her in one of these lanes." Not giving up, some of the sellers even asked for descriptions of their 'wives' so they could help them hunt down the financial controller. And they conveniently described ME to them so they would come harrass me instead. That was quite smart of them haha.




I quite like these. Must have been the colours.




And there were ostrich's eggs for sale as souvenirs. A hole was drilled into them to drain out whatever the shells contained, then the shells were dried and put up for sale. What the hell does one do with a gigantic egg shell? Dante even told me I had to get one before I left for South Africa. Like huh? I wouldn't know what to do with it.




We also spent some time in an art gallery. Everything looked very orangey inside.




We then passed by this Pick A Pancake place but didn't step in. Not really in the mood for pancakes.




We were really wanting to try some exotic meats. Leon highly recommended the biltong, delicious local beef-jerky-like stuff except they come in antelope/ostrich/springbuck/elephant ears/kudu meats.








I tried the antelope ones. They're not bad actually. And so we chewed on these antelope thingy on the long drive back to the hotel to continue our scheduled work meetings late into the night.




And I'm still not done yet with the Johannesburg series. Just 1 or 2 more entries to go. Where is a good place to sneak a shower and enjoy a magnificent view of aircraft taking off and landing by the pool while waiting to board your flight from Johannesburg Airport? Coming up next. Entry posted here.