Somewhere beyond our comforting little circle of firelight the lions were hunting. In the hour before sunset we had seen the East Side Pride rise lethargically to their feet and wander off to begin their bloody nightshift. By first light the springboks would be pronking playfully again, kicking up their legs in apparent joy at having survived the night, but while we nursed our drinks and warmed our hands, terror and death ruled out on the dark savannah.

The guide spurred his horse forward: “Let’s Ride!...And try not to let any big pussy cats spook the horses.” There’s nothing as thrilling as galloping through the African bushveld and, as I felt my horse surge underneath me and the wicked acacia thorns began to whip past my thighs, I gratefully delegated all responsibility for our welfare to my faithful steed. If either of us was in danger of getting ‘spooked’ it wasn’t Strider.

Twenty thousand years are all that it took for the San Bushman to learn to live off the ‘fat of the land.’ With nothing more than a pair of eland skin slippers, a bow and a quiver full of surprisingly spindly arrows they could travel vast distances.

As Soweto prepares to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup final, David Whitley discovers how hope and opportunity are changing South Africa’s most famous township.

The man behind the street stall calls out to Ted. “Hey Papa, howzit?” The story of how Ted Taylor, a humble tour guide, came to be known as Papa throughout Soweto is a fascinating one. He was one of the first guides to take tourists around Johannesburg’s most notorious township, and made a point of interacting with the residents. So much so that when one of the bead sellers outside the Hector Pieterson Memorial died in 2004, he was invited to the funeral. Ted was the only white man there, and was told by fellow mourners that he was now part of the family.