Sun City, Johannesburg: Number 180 of the 1000 Places to See Before You Die

It was a slightly refreshed body that clambered into my friend's car to head out to Sun City for the weekend, keen to discover another of the 1000 Places. The gutteral tones of the Afrikaans accent filled the car as we headed out of town and I got an update of the improvements in Johannesburg as a result of the FIFA World Cup- largely roads and stadiums!! Still, even after all these improvements, being Joburg, the estimates of the time it would take to get to Sun City varied from 1 to 2.5 hours.

As it was, we had the misfortune to choose a highway congested with cars, three traffic accidents as well as workers installing the new toll gates - all with a rather complicated charging system depending on the time of day, whether the car has an electronic number plate and the number of times you use that road. Roughly translating at about £5 for the short...and very common drive of Sandton to Pretoria...it would create hell when up and running as people duck and wove to use side roads as their entrance points into town.
Joburg already had a non-existent public transport system, too many people living on the edges who came in to the city to work and therefore needed to have a car, a poor road design system that even with the addition of more offshoot roads and the widening of the highway would still result in pretty much permanent gridlock and now... a road tax.

Anyhow, up we trundled to the North West Province to tick another one in the 1000 Places book. From all I'd heard about Sun City over the years I have to admit that this was one place I was not looking forward to seeing. The words garish sprung to mind as soon as I thought of the place.

Sun City was the brainchild of Sol Kerzner- a South African who is now perhaps more globally famous for being the owner of the One & Only resorts and being the developer of the Atlantis Resort in Dubai, a $1.5 billion, 1,500-room, water-themed resort which opened in late 2008 on The Palm Jumeirah.

However in an apartheid South Africa in 1979 when gambling was illegal he devised the concept of Sun City and over a period of ten years built the most ambitious resort project seen to date in South Africa- four hotels, a man-made lake, two Gary Player golf courses and an entertainment center with an indoor 6,000-seat multi-purpose arena which hosted concerts and was the venue of many World Title fights. A little slice of Disney fantasy world in the middle of one of the richest mining belts in the world.

Anyhow, we arrived......

Now, it could have been the plethora of plebs (im unsure what you call a group of plebians but that sounds good!) jumping on the dinky toy train to take them back down to the car park while we had travelled in the opposite direction- all sunburnt, bare feet, slightly inebriated, carrying towels with strong Afrikaans accents jostling over each other after a raucous day in the complex that made me just not want to go inside.

It might have been that with the traffic we didnt get there until 5pm, despite leaving at 1pm, and were starving and that the restaurants had stopped serving food at 4pm so the only choices was fast food- Indian Halal, Hot Dogs or Steers Burgers (we went for Steers).

It could have been that we had to eat while sitting in some gigantically ghastly setting, replete with faux baobab tree and a painted jungle complete with every species including flamingos sitting near lion's heads (see below) while watching desperate gamblers light up in the Smoking Casino and sink pennies into slot machines.

It might have been on the mad dash to the Valley of the Waves to take some photos we had to jostle pass hundreds of grumpy parents and tired children all heading in the opposite direction, while a cacophony of noise blasted our eardrums as all these side alley horrors like shooting ducks, grabbing stuffed toys with steel pincers, throwing darts and disco dancing lined up every side and at times in the middle of the route into the Valley. Each run by young teenagers who just had that whiff of desperation that one hour till closing time on the key ride in their section will bring.

Or perhaps it was on finally entering the "Bridge of Time" (presumably time backwards as the Valley of Waves was set in some faux Inca style) replete with its many elephants, passing through the Monkey Spring Plaza (a multitude of crouching monkeys sitting on top of a fountain) and rounding the bend to gaze upon...Macchu Picchu fully cleared? Babylon? Some place in Africa that has been lost to a jungle?

 

The designers had certainly gone to town at the Valley of the Waves with their foam blocks and concrete on this one (ah yes- that week long concrete decorating class I did in Phoenix Arizona finally paid off and I now know how Disneyland and other theme parks have been built). From the Temple of Courage one could do an 17m water slide. There was a Lazy River to float around with an Adventure Mountain in the middle. The wave pool (okay I photographed it when it had closed!) was flanked by a sandy beach complete with Royal Baths and the Mamba and Viper tube slides.

Even now, having had to wait 24 hours before I wrote this blog on Sun City as I can still feel the distaste bubbling in me, I can just picture the entire Valley of Waves heaving with squealing all-the-colours-of-the-rainbow children, bloated mothers eating ice-creams on the side while dads reclaimed their lost youth catching simulated waves, hotdogs and tomato sauce smeared all over the loungers, pop music blaring over the speakers, the rush of bodies slipping down the water slides, the slap of rubber as tubes collided.

Closing time I have decided is the only time one should go to the Valley of Waves.

Back to the non welcoming Welcome Centre where we decided, just for the sake of the 1000 places to see before you die book as it promised to do my head utterly in, we would stay overnight in the complex and drive back in the morning. Realising, from the pleb plethora we had encountered on their way out, that the casino- the entire reason why this complex was built in the first place- was going to be more like Hooters Casino in Vegas than the Bellagio, we felt perfectly comfortable settling in for a night of blackjack while wearing shorts and flip flops.

Alas, perhaps the final straw was when they couldnt book us a room in one of the 4 hotels in the complex but could only give us a central reservations number....which answered with a recorded message "We close at 4pm. Thank you for your call" before disconnecting me.

Or perhaps it might have been when I enquired to the man behind the welcome counter as to the possibility of seeing the Palace of the Lost City Hotel (had to see who in their right mind would pay US$300 a night to overlook the ghastly Valley of Waves), I was told that access was only on one of the 5 tours, all of which had.....you guessed it....finished.

Or perhaps the camel's back was broken when I politely enquired as to what suggestions he could give me to do at 6pm in Sun City and he suggested a walk in the garden. It was raining.

Anyhow, click here if you want to see pictures of the Palace of the Lost City Hotel and are seriously mad enough to contemplate even driving to this little slice of hell in the sticks. This place does not deserve a spot in the 1000 Places book...and sadly no locals could think of a replacement Joburg entry.

I meanwhile, having reclaimed my weekend, am off to Sandton for some shopping and massage before heading off to Brazil for Carnevale. Far better use of my time!!

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