WowZulu Marketplace

About WowZulu Marketplace

If you have ever done the Inanda Heritage Route in Durban (and if you haven't, then you should seriously consider doing so) then you will have visited the Ohlange Institute in Inanda, just outside Durban.

The Inanda Heritage Route, described as one of Durban's 'most precious hidden gems', guides visitors to the Inanda settlement. Here lived John Dube, the first president of the ANC who also developed the Zulu Christian Industrial School (Ohlange Institute) that, in 1994, served as the polling place where Nelson Mandela cast his vote. Here too is Mahatma Gandhi's Phoenix settlement, just down the road from the Ohlange Institute.

Inanda's history is marred by violence. Violence that despite having calmed considerably is still present due mainly to political factionalism and the marking out of territory for political leaders.

Despite this, it is not dangerous to visit as part of a tour (we were perfectly safe when we did it in December 2015). Perceptions are changing and the Durban Green Corridor and other tourism organisations have worked over a number of years to build the city's ecotourism industry to include KwaMashu and Inanda.

A FreeinInanda campaign urges people to visit this valley.

Dube's Ohlanga Institute was the first educational institution founded by a black person on land donated by the chief of the AmaQadi, and modelled on the Tuskegee University in America.

The school's emphasis was on developing students' self-reliance, teaching not only basic education but also vocational skills like journalism, shoe and dressmaking, carpentry, motor mechanics and agriculture.

Today Dube's house, on the hill above the school, functions as a museum to his legacy and makes for a thoroughly interesting visit.

Alongside it is the WowZulu marketplace, a great space where tourists can drink coffee, hear stories, buy local crafts and gifts and find out where to go and what to do next.

Set up by one of the agencies involved in the FreeinInanda campaign, Africa!Ignite, it is here that you can pick up a local guide to take you on to Gandhi's settlement, Sbu's Tavern, Mzinyathi Falls, the Rasta caves, the Ebuhleni Shembe Village, the finfoot birding loop and Bridge City.

There are other WowZulu marketplaces at Lake Eland at Oribi Gorge, Isandlwana Museum in the Battlefields, Zulu Croc near Hluhluwe, and King Shaka International.