Hi Claudia and Jan! Ray and Penny did the township tour in Capetown with Paul one day; Gary and I did it the next day. It ran about three hours including travel time. Cost was on the order of $50 US per person; Paul gave part of that cost directly to the township community leaders.
We visited two of the black townships on the tour: the first one, Langa, is the oldest township in the area. The second one, Khayelitsha, is the largest township in Cape Town and is home for somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million residents. The living conditions are so cramped it's hard to describe.
We stopped first at a traditional healer's pharmacy and consultation office. Next, we stopped at several craft markets where we bought handicrafts directly from the residents who were working on the items while we were there. Prices were about what we saw at the greenmarket in Cape Town. We also visited a preschool where the children sang for us and we were able to talk with the headmistress.
There was a stop at Miss Vicky's B&B, where we could go in and see a township home from the inside. Miss Vicky has two rooms for visitors who want to experience life in that community. The townships are spotlessly clean despite the cramped living conditions. Residents dress modestly. Addresses in the townships are limited to the quadrants defined by the closest electric service pole. This tour was one of the most remarkable parts of our ROAR trip.
If you can rent the movie "Tsotsi", you'll get a good idea about the living conditions and the tremendous contrasts amongst and within the ethnic groups in South Africa today.
The best advice we got (and did not follow) was to read "The Covenant" by James Michner before we came to South Africa. It is enormous (the paperback we borrowed was 1400 pages). We read parts of it on the train after having seen the townships. It is extraordinary and helped us better understand South Africa's history and challenges.
Here's a link to a short history of Khayelitsha
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khayelitsha Cheers, Anne
