The approach is not promising. Nondescript, dusty peri-urban streets between the central Sandton tourist district and the airport. There’s a garden centre and a full car service at knock-down prices, but this wayward hunt for treasure is appropriate given where you are headed. Soon, a turn at a traffic light and a thin line of fever trees indicates that the energy has shifted a little.

To find yourself outside the gates of Amatuli is a skin-tingling, pulse- quickening experience. Bright west-African barbershop adverts lead into a courtyard, boughed with acacias, their thorns, pods and painted metal birds, dipping towards the shady tables and sofas of the Milk Bar where, later, you can enjoy a coffee or breakfast. All around, high and deep, are the tiered treasure caves.

The ground floor of the wholesaler and trading store, where staff and resident ginger cat will meet you, is more curated than the rest of this vast jewelled cavern. On the cool concrete floors are artful displays of Ghanaian masks, Zulu baskets, Tuareg silver, chairs upholstered in hand-dyed indigo linens, beaded thrones and vintage maps of Africa.

Above are three floors of vibrant chaos. Wicker chairs from Malawi, strung together with rope from floor to ceiling, and coloured glass lanterns swinging from balconies and over cabinets, stools and tables from all across Africa. There are rooms behind rooms, and through a door outside, Mokoro canoes from Botswana line the wall, surrounded by carved fishes the size of baby hippos.

Amatuli feels like another country, one you have always longed for. And yet it’s a place where you will feel entirely at home.

• 6 Desmond Street, Kramerville, amatuli.co.za
Fiona Melrose’s first novel, Midwinter (Corsair, £16.99) is out now. To buy a copy for £13.93, including UK p&p, call 0330 333 6846, or visit bookshop.theguardian.com