Visitors can take in the heady sight of stalls packed with animal skins and strong herbs used to ward off evil and bring good health. It is also a great place to pick up beadwork and is known for its sandals handmade from rubber tires.
Dubbed "Ezinyangeni" -- the place of healers -- the Mai Mai market is dedicated to traditional African medicine or "muti."
The ill and the unlucky come to consult its herbalists or "inyangas" and its diviners known as "sangomas," who communicate with ancestral spirits and read the future by throwing bones.
For some, "muti" is associated with quackery and witch doctors. There are gruesome "muti" killings and crooks preparing to commit a crime are known to take part in rituals to make them invincible.
For most, though, it is the practice of an ancient art of healing that is passed down to a chosen few initiates.
But visitors be warned, there are some strange and macabre sights.
Skins and skulls line the eaves above your head as you walk along the rows of red-bricked buildings. There are snakeskins, crocodile skins, dozens of deer hides and the misshapen skulls of a few cows. Look carefully and you will see the odd (and illegal) leopard pelt, even the stretched grey fur of a baboon.
Bones yellow with age, bark and earth-red roots frame the windows and doorways of the little shops. Their shady interiors are lined with shelves of downy herbs. On front counters are rows of stoppered bottles filled with brown powders and nameless other dried organisms.
There is the lingering smell of "impepho," a plant dried into coils and burnt for spiritual cleansing.
The traditional healers are a tight-knit community and aren't always friendly to strangers. Communication can also be difficult as most of the healers only speak isiZulu, as the language of the Zulu people is called.
In one shop, a woman with sharp cheekbones and a stony glare kept us away. But a little farther away, Themba Maseko was as warm and inviting as his shop was enticing. The inside and outside were decked with strings of neon-coloured beadwork, thick belts made from cowrie shells, feather headdresses and patterned cloths.
Maseko says people from all backgrounds come to him with problems ranging from unemployment to sleeplessness, marital difficulties and infertility.
"You need to take time and throw the bones," says Maseko, referring to a custom of telling fortunes by casting small animal bones on the ground. "These bones will detect how things should be put in order."
The 38-year-old former bank clerk explains how he "got a calling" about 10 years ago. He used to fall into a deep sleep at his desk and went to see a traditional healer who told him he needed to become one himself.
"I never went back to the bank. I am supposed to be in a place like this," he says happily.
The Department of Health estimates about 70 per cent of South Africans use traditional African medicine, often comfortably alongside western medical practices. The tens of thousands of traditional healers in South Africa are being organized and regulated. Some play an important role in primary health care.
Maseko admits "muti" is still something of a taboo topic.
"Some people are afraid to come and they will wait until it becomes dark. But at the end of the day, muti is the charm of everybody," he says.
Maseko, and some of the other healers, will do consultations with foreign visitors for a negotiable fee. But most visitors prefer to just look on and wander around the market.
Wallet-friendly attractions
Montreal Auto Show - less people, just as much interest
