2Summer
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My name is Heather Mason and I'm an American Photographer based in Johannesburg. I write a blog called 2Summers. I've developed a passion for Johannesburg that I've never felt for any other place. I tell stories about life in Joburg and my travels around South Africa and the rest of the world.
2Summer
3w ago
I recently learned a bonkers statistic: Around 40% of all of the hominid fossils ever discovered were unearthed in the Cradle of Humankind. In other words, close to half of all the known fossils from our human ancestors — in the entire world — came out of the ground right here in Gauteng Province. This ..read more
2Summer
1M ago
This jumpsuit love story began eight months ago, when I booked a Caraci experience on Airbnb to celebrate my birthday. Thorsten and I spent a glorious day in the Joburg CBD, shopping for African print fabric, learning how to sew, hanging out in the city, and having fabulous jackets made to our exact measurements. That ..read more
2Summer
1M ago
The Drakensberg Mountains fly under the radar in South Africa’s tourism scene. Everyone goes to Cape Town and the Kruger and the Garden Route, but the Drakensberg doesn’t often make it onto that “must-see” tourist itinerary. Even I’m guilty of neglecting the Drakensberg; I’d dipped in once or twice over the years but had never ..read more
2Summer
1M ago
I’ve developed a great interest in clothes, as most of you know, especially locally designed and thrifted clothes. And clothes-swapping — the act of exchanging clothing items with others, rather than buying new or second-hand clothes — is like thrifting on steroids. We’ve all got clothes that we don’t want or simply don’t wear anymore…Why ..read more
2Summer
1M ago
Regular readers will know that I’ve written a couple of posts about Noordgesig — affectionately called Bulte, which means “Hills” in Afrikaans — lately (see here and here). Last year I befriended Lavinia and Fabian Otto, who live in Noordgesig, and they’ve been slowly introducing me to Bulte’s unique history and culture. Fabian and Lavinia ..read more
2Summer
2M ago
Last Tuesday I put on my big-girl pants — or, more accurately, my young-girl pants — and stayed out past midnight to attend the Sawubona Music Jam in Chiwelo, Soweto. I’ve known about the Sawubona Music Jam, which happens every Tuesday night, for years. But as a middle-aged person usually in bed by 9:30, I ..read more
2Summer
2M ago
I am way behind in publishing this final installment of the Blogitects’ December Limpopo roadtrip. (Read the first three installments here, here, and here.) Marakele National Park was our last stop on the journey and Thorsten and I were both running out of steam at that point, so we spent most of our time at ..read more
2Summer
2M ago
A couple of Saturdays ago, my friends Fiver and Stuart and I woke up at before 5:00 a.m. and drove an hour north to the Pretoria Boeremark in Silverton. I’ve been meaning to check out this market — probably the largest open-air market in Gauteng — for ages, but it took a while for me ..read more
2Summer
2M ago
When I moved to South Africa I was very confused by the word matric. “My daughter is in matric,” someone would say, or, “My son is studying for matric exams,” and I would smile and nod, wondering what they meant. Eventually I figured out that matric is short for matriculation, and “passing matric” is sort ..read more
2Summer
3M ago
I’ve been procrastinating on this post about Mapungubwe National Park because I don’t know where to start. Mapungubwe, which is at the far northern tip of South Africa, across the border from both Zimbabwe and Botswana, was the whole reason we planned our Limpopo road trip; I’d been wanting to go there forever. There is ..read more