Cape Town   I find that, to speak of Cape Town, you have to really speak about the quite distinctive region around it as well. First of all, when picturing the continent of Africa, rather than thinking in terms of “south”, think in terms of “southwest”, and you’ll then be at the peninsula on which Cape Town lies. Just as we visualize Italy in terms of a boot, in the case of Cape Town, picture a foot--the foot a crouched runner about to run to the right (east), and the geography of the Cape Town area will fall into place. Just a bit inland, where the ankle would be, is the wine country, which includes Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. To the west and facing roughly north, just where the heel would be, is Cape Town itself, underneath Table Mountain, and on Table Bay, which includes Robben Island. Finally, the length of the foot pointing south ends in the Cape of Good Hope, which has two areas of interest at its end, a point of land and also the Cape proper. To the west, at the sole of the foot, is the open Atlantic Ocean, of which Table Bay is a part. To the east, “on top of” the foot, is False Bay, called that because westbound mariners, having already passed Cape Argulhas a bit further east, turned here too early for Cape Town and ended up in a dead-end bay instead.

As the Blue Train approached Cape Town, I met in the observation car someone who, as it turned out, was a graduate of Brooklyn Tech, who introduced me to another Technite he was traveling with, so we had a minor, three-alumni high school reunion. As the train arrived at about midday, the people I’d met at lunch and dinner, as I said, offered to drive me to my first hotel, which did save me a fifteen-minute walk with my wheeled bag. Actually, I ended up walking a lot more that afternoon, including the equivalent distance, but not with my wheelie.

The reference to my “first hotel” needs explanation. Along with the booking of Rovos Rail’s Pride of Africa came the possibility of booking extra tours. As a staunchly independent traveler, the mere mention of “tours” arouses immediate wariness in me. Guides giving explanations are not the problem, since they’re usually quite helpful beyond my guidebooks. It’s the arranging of the details that concerns me, since I strongly believe that if you want something done “right” you should do it yourself. The tour at the end involves three locations in Tanzania, which others on the Rovos trip have arranged for on their own, but I still have high hopes for its outcome as planned for me. [Note after the fact: it was excellent.] However, the pre-tour in the Cape Town area was quite enjoyable, yet if I’d planned it myself, as at least one other couple did, I would have made two changes, both of which I later informed Rovos about, and am sure will be rectified in the future. In any case, the pre-tour included three nights in the posh Cape Grace Hotel, yet I needed one night before that, so I booked one night free on Starwood points at the Westin Grand (which was still the Arabella Sheraton Grand, a sister Starwood company, when I booked it). It was on the way to the Cape Grace’s location, and was well recommended.

The only minus of the Westin was its minimalist style. It’s a tall concrete block built into a convention centre, and from the outside has no real personality. Its lobby was overly large, but had a pleasant touch—there were two urns serving complimentary hot cinnamon-lemon-flavoured apple cider as you entered. It was a nice winter’s touch, and do remember, sunny as it was, it was indeed winter.

Another perk of free bookings on Starpoints is the possibility of upgrades, often without even urging. As it turned out, they put me on the 18th (top) floor, which was the Executive Level. The advantage here was having a huge wall of windows overlooking the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, including the Cape Grace Hotel, and facing the sunset, with Table Mountain to the left. The minor disadvantage was that the very large room was done in that same minimalist style. From a large entrance lobby, you passed the huge cloudy-glass doors to the walk-in closet and to the bathroom, which in turn had huge glass doors to the shower and separate toilet. I absorbed myself with the magnificent view—and the free internet.

Before the tour arranged by Rovos started, and I moved to the Cape Grace, I had two half-days, which was exactly what I needed, since I knew what I wanted to see and had provided myself with a city map. This first half-day would cover the City Bowl and the Waterfront.

CITY BOWL The downtown area of Cape Town, the Mother City, oldest in South Africa and dating from 1652, has the curious name of City Bowl. Although it isn’t a city overly rich in sights, there were three areas I was curious about. I still recall that, as I started my two-hour walk in the City Bowl, the air had a delicious, invigorating nip to it. After passing tall, uninteresting office blocks, I came to a pedestrian street I’d been looking for, Saint George’s Mall. The hustle and bustle here reflected the diversity I’d expected. Down the center of an otherwise contemporary city street were kiosks with people of all nationalities selling their wares.

Saint George’s Mall gave an insight to today, but I also wanted to have an insight to yesterday, so I headed a couple of blocks away to Groentemarkplein / Green Market Square. Surrounded by European-style buildings, including a Neo-Gothic church is a market of small stalls, all selling traditional African wares, all run by black Africans. Now I’m fully aware that the carved hippos, beaded necklaces, and the like are of interest primarily to the tourist trade. That isn’t what fascinated me. What I enjoyed was the parallel, once again, to the American West, where, say, in Santa Fe, there will be the little shops and stands of American Indians selling their crafts. It’s the parallel blend of contemporary and traditional, in South Africa as in the American West, that drew me here.

At the southern end of the City Bowl is a park area which includes museums, traditional government buildings, and, most interestingly, the Company Gardens. The company referred to is the Dutch East-India Company, and the park-cum-botanical garden was of interest for the variety of plant life, and also animal life. Walking around the lawns were numerous large gray-beige goose-looking birds, with red detail at the end of their wings. I later learned these were Egyptian geese, and again, a North-American parallel came to mind, the Canadian geese that fly south to the US.

My walk here ended over at the walled exterior of Good Hope Castle (1666-1679), the oldest building in South Africa.

V&A WATERFRONT Back at the Westin, I took its complimentary shuttle van to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, a redevelopment area of this historic heart of the city which is now South Africa’s most-visited destination. Although the distance was walkable, the fact that there’s a van available indicates the popularity of this area. And yes, that’s Alfred, and not Albert. In 1860, Queen Victoria’s second son, Prince Alfred had a harbour built for Cape Town. He named the larger, outer basin for his mother, and the smaller, inner one for himself. With the decline of the harbour and its surrounding neighborhoods, the recycling of this area is bringing back residential development to join the numerous restaurants, cafés, hotels, cinemas, museums, and shops located on the various quays and piers. In the center is the restored, landmark red clock tower with the new, white pedestrian swing bridge over the connection between the two basins. It’s relaxing to just watch the small bridge swing open for boats, then close for pedestrians. Further in, over the channel between the Alfred basin and a marina, is a bright blue bascule bridge connecting to the quay the Cape Grace Hotel is on. I was surprised to see, slowly moving under this bascule bridge, a good-sized seal lolling his way from the marina to the basin.

ROBBEN ISLAND The next day was to be devoted to going out to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela had been incarcerated. But there was a problem. I had read that boats went out hourly all day, but apparently that was just in the (local) summer, and now in the winter, they went only at 9, 11, and 1. And they were sold out for days. I checked with people at both hotels, and they tried, but couldn’t pull any strings. Robben Island is now called the Robben Island Museum, and is a Unesco World Heritage Site because of its prison history and particularly for its connection with South Africa’s recent history. It’s a private agency that runs the museum and boats going out to it, and it seems to me that, if they’re sending away streams of people wanting to visit the island (which I saw happen at the ticket window), someone isn’t doing his job in providing for the demand. But not to fear.

On that second day, when I wanted to go, I discounted the 9 o’clock sailing as too early. Ideally, I wanted a cancellation for the 11, otherwise, the 1. Just after 10 I arrived at the window, to be told, as I’d expected, that there was nothing available and no cancellations. I said I’d wait. I paced, looked at the pictures on the walls, and thumbed, while standing, through the newspaper the hotel had given me. Then, suddenly, at 10:30, a “cancellation” appeared for the 11 o’clock boat. How convenient. It probably helped that I just wanted a single ticket, but note how persistence can win the day, especially given that a stream of people kept coming up to the window for tickets, to be rejected.

One of the advantages to sailing to Robben Island is the view you get back of the city, particularly of its location under Table Mountain, which rises 1086 meters / 3566 feet above the City Bowl. The tall buildings below are absolutely dwarfed by this huge, flat-topped mountain, and it was an impressive sight, especially on a perfectly clear day. And I did mention that fragrant winter-spring nip in the air, didn’t I?

It never had struck me before, be being right there, it seemed to me that the name of the island reminded me of something, and then it became clear. In German, and I presume in Dutch and Afrikaans, a Robbe is a seal, Robben are seals, so Robben Island could be translated as Seal Island. There are apparently no seals left in any number, so the one I had seen in the harbour must be something of an exception. [À propos prison islands named after wildlife, alcatraz is the Spanish word for a gannet, a large seabird. One additional point: you will have noted that I’ve been consistently using British spellings such as “harbour” and “centre”, which are also used in South Africa. This is in order to add local colour.]

As Victoria Basin and Cape Town under flat-topped Table Mountain fell back into the distance, we gradually chug-chugged our way across some 13 kilometers of Table Bay. It took some 45 minutes, largely since the fast and larger catamaran that gets you there much quicker was sitting idly by, back at the dock.

Robben Island was first used as a prison back in the Dutch days, but in modern times, it was used for some 1200 political prisoners, as well as criminal prisoners. There was also a leper burial ground from when it was used to house victims of Hansen’s disease. Nelson Mandela spent 18 of the 27 years he was a political prisoner on Robben Island. They first take you by bus to a number of sites on the small island, then walk you through the prison itself. You stop at the lime quarry where prisoners would make gravel out of the lime they quarried by hand. Among the wildlife we saw on the island was one African penguin lumbering across the grass. There was a village with church and post office for warders’ families. On the outer side of the island were several gun emplacements put up in World War Two, but they were never fired in anger. I reflected that during the war, with the closing of the Suez Canal to the Axis powers, all of a sudden the old route around the Cape of Good Hope became viable again, but apparently there were no hostile incidents.

Walking through the one-level prison you got to see Mandela’s cell, which is one of many similar ones. It’s maybe 2.5 meters/yards square, with a mat on the floor and bucket in the corner. It has a barred glass window looking out to the courtyard and another looking into the corridor, next to the door. It was a stone or cinder block structure rather than any sort of a metal cage. In the mid-Nineties there was a reunion of former political prisoners at the prison, and a picture they display shows people who are today government ministers, journalists, and the like. The guide was himself a former political prisoner, incarcerated at the age of 16. He said he felt it was rewarding to him to give the tours, and he occasionally would go sit in his former cell to contemplate. He also pointed out how the guards would set criminal prisoners to wreak violence upon political prisoners. However, the political prisoners had an educational policy of giving instruction to each other, called “each one teach one”. In 1991 the political prisoners were released and the criminal prisoners were relocated, allowing the island to become a museum in 1996.

Winelands & Cape   Later that day I took the Westin shuttle bus to the Cape Grace, which is a member of both the Leading Hotels of the World and the Leading Small Hotels of the World. Since it sits on its own quay, it’s long and narrow. It’s very charming and accommodating. As in some other posh hotels, registration takes place seated at one of two desks in the lobby, but an indicative nice touch here was that they brought the arriving guest a hot towel, and a nicely scented one at that. The rooms were comfortable and in a traditional style more to my taste. It had a library with a roaring fire in the evenings, where you could help yourself to complimentary sherry or port. The Cape Grace has a gentle, understated sense of class.

As mentioned, as an independent traveller (traveler), I always plan, book, and execute my own schedule. However, Rovos Rail offered a two-day tour of the Winelands and Cape, with three nights at the Cape Grace Hotel. It was most enjoyable, although I would have made two adjustments.

WINELANDS There were about a dozen of us doing this, so we’d already know each other when many more joined us for the actual rail trip. Terry, the guide, was knowledgeable and charming. The first day was the winelands tour, and started by passing by chance something I’d been wanting to see, Groote Schuur Hospital.

In 1967 Dr Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful human heart transplant at Groote Schuur. Apparently today there is a Transplant Museum there, which is more than I’m interested in. Groote Schuur, which means Big Barn, comes from the name of an original Dutch estate that preceded the hospital.

Before saying anything more about the wine country, we need to mention Simon van der Stel, and early Dutch governor of the Cape, whose influence is still apparent. Down on the Cape peninsula along False Bay is the port of Simonstown, for instance. But he also is responsible for founding some other towns, and for establishing South Africa’s considerable wine industry.

If Cape Town is in the “heel” of the region, then the wine country is to the east in the “ankle”, where conditions are uniquely positive in South Africa for growing wine grapes. 46 kilometers / 29 miles east of Cape Town is Stellenbosch, founded by van der Stel in 1679, and named after himself; it’s the second oldest town in South Africa after Cape Town. We stopped in Stellenbosch to stroll around the picturesque town, then had a wine tasting nearby in the cellar of one of the wine producers; the cellar was built into the side of a mountain.

33 kilometers / 20 miles beyond that is Franschhoek (“French Corner”), the town van der Stel gave to the Huguenots in 1688 to settle here. It was the Huguenots who brought the wine culture to the area. It is amazing how any community who accepted the Huguenots fleeing France ended up bettering itself because of their skills and abilities. I think here of the Hudson Valley and of Berlin. It was all France’s loss. Near Franschhoek we had a second wine tasting, not directly in a cellar, but in a vaulted tasting room.

CAPE PENINSULA The second tour day was south along the Cape peninsula, all the way to the “toe” of the “foot” image we’ve been using. About halfway down we passed through the community of Constantia, where the people who dropped me off at the Westin lived, and just passed by the front gate of the Groot Constantia winery. It was pointed out when I inquired that Klein Constantia was just beyond it. This is the stop I had wanted to make and was under the impression we’d see.

We frequently saw baboons (which can be quite a bother to homeowners) and it was here that I again saw Egyptian geese, and found out just what they were. Just before the Cape, we stopped at an ostrich farm to look at the birds close-up. It was more of a surprise later on when we were approaching the Cape itself and saw three wild ostriches grazing on the side of the road.

The southern tip of the peninsula has two locations of interest, Cape Point to the east and the actual Cape of Good Hope a bit further to the west. Cape Point is the more spectacular to see, and we went there first. Of the two areas here, it’s the one that has the high cliffs and the lighthouses. A funicular brings you from the parking area nearly to the top of the cliff area, and you then climb steps to the top. The lighthouse built there in 1860 249 meters / 817 feet above the sea proved to be a fiasco and was decommissioned in 1919. Because of its great height, it was frequently socked in with fog and too frequently ended up being useless just when it was needed most. It was replaced with another lighthouse lower on the cliff at Dias Point, which is at only 87 meters / 285 feet and does fulfill its purpose. As you clamber around the walkways on this area you have multiple opportunities to “savour the sea” as I had read on the sign on the cliffs in Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia.

The actual Cape of Good Hope is a few moments’ drive to the west. Although it’s more significant as the actual most southwestern point of Africa, it’s a beachy area and is less spectacular than the cliffs at Cape Point. Cape Point is at 34° 21’ 24” South, and the actual Cape of Good Hope is just one second further south at 34° 21’ 25”; while Cape Point is at 18° 29’ 51” East, the CGH is a bit less at 18° 28’ 26”.

Being at the southwesternmost point of Africa reminded me of when we were at the southwesternmost point of Europe, in Portugal, at Cabo São Vicente, near Sagres.

However, another point has to be made here. Neither location we stopped at is the southernmost point of Africa, nor the point where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet. There is a Cape Agulhas to the east of False Bay, at 20°E, which reaches to 35°S. (I pronounced it a.GOOL.yash, since it’s a Portuguese name, but I was advised that the local pronunciation makes it a close rhyme with “a gullet” instead. Witness the dangers of knowing too much). Westbound mariners passing Cape Agulhas as the southernmost point of Africa then made the mistake of turning into False Bay, hence its name, instead of rounding the Cape of Good Hope into Table Bay.

It might strike you that you can’t know where two oceans meet, since there’s no traffic sign in the surf, but it’s all about ocean currents. A certain Agulhas Current comes sweeping down the Indian Ocean from Madagascar and meets the colder Atlantic currents off Cape Agulhas. Also, the different currents, with their different temperatures, support different kinds of sealife.

Coming back north along False Bay, we stopped for something unique: African penguins. I had known that there were colonies of penguins along the Chilean coast and in South Africa, and had spotted that single one walking across the lawn on Robben Island, but at a park area in Boulders there’s a preserve for them. You walk along boardwalks to look at the nesting areas on and near the beach. When one comes with a visual image of penguins always on snow and ice, seeing them waddling in the sand to dive off a rock into the surf is a startling sight. African penguins are small, about the size of a large duck, and we spent some time watching their activities. Not the least of this is their unusual habit of braying, which explain their alternate name of jackass penguins. You would be looking at a cluster of several dozen birds, then suddenly one would point his beak straight at the sky and give off this surprisingly raucous braying sound, and when one was done, after a while, another would take over, evoking smiles from the spectators.

We finally stopped at a well-known botanical garden, which was a waste of time, since it was the dead of winter and there was nothing in particular to see.

I would have done this pre-tour differently in two ways. (1) Although I could have arranged to rent a car and drive, I wasn’t so inclined, especially given the number of local carjackings. Although South Africa is trying to become a rainbow society, it’s still a matter of haves and have-nots trying to live with each other in a democracy. Another couple had arranged for their own tour, and they went precisely where they wanted. The information given us on our tour destinations had varied over time, and as it turned out, I would have skipped the botanical garden in favor of seeing Groot and/or Klein Constantia (but see below). (2) I would have arranged the dinner funding differently. A set amount of the money we had paid, R300 (300 Rand, about $39) per night for three nights, was given to the hotel restaurant in our name, use it or lose it. Some might have liked to have dined elsewhere; given all the food we were getting, I might have skipped dinner, or taken a sandwich. Tom Rutherford, the Cape Grace House Manager, stopped by my table at breakfast to introduce himself and have a chat in general. We got along fine, and he seemed to appreciate my sense of humour. Along with other items of hotel feedback that Tom seemed appreciative to hear, I mentioned this odd dinner policy of this tour; he also thought the situation was unusual. In any case, both the precision as to tour destinations and the dinner policy can be easily adjusted in the future.

GROOT & KLEIN CONSTANTIA So what’s all this Constantia fuss? Well, actually, it got resolved in a very pleasing way, anyway, but it’s all about wine, history, and historical wine. We start again with Simon van der Stel, but this time not in the Winelands, but on the Cape peninsula.

Between the two dates when he established Stellenbosch and Franschhoek over in the Winelands, in the peninsula in 1685 he established his own farm, called Groot (Great) Constantia. It was reputedly named after his daughter, Constantia (Constancia? Constance?). A community eventually grew up around it that took its name. The farm also became a wine producer, one of renown. By 1712, part of the estate became separated, and is still today known as Klein (Little) Constantia. By the late 1700’s Klein Constantia was producing a dessert wine that put it on the map. French being the international language of the period, this dessert wine was called either Constantia, or named in French as Vin de Constance.

Good as Vin de Constance is, it’s the history it carries that draws interest. Louis Philippe sent emissaries from France to get the wine. Napoléon drank it in exile on Saint Helena. Bismarck and Frederick the Great ordered it. In England it was delivered to both Downing Street and Buckingham Palace.

It also had an affect on literature. The German poet Klopstock devoted an entire ode to it. Baudelaire used it as a sensuous image in Les Fleurs du Mal. Charles Dickens tells in Edwin Drood of “the support embodied in a glass of Constantia and a home-made biscuit”. And Jane Austen suggests that her heroine try a little Constantia for “its healing powers on a disappointed heart”. To me, the historical overlay makes it even more desirable.

Then tragedy struck. The same disease, phylloxera, that wiped out French vines in the 1860’s, did the same in South Africa, including at Groot and Klein Constantia. As you may know, the French wine industry recovered by grafting together disease-resistant American vines with the French vines, but Constantia languished. Only in the 1970’s were Groot and Klein Constantia started up again, and Klein Constantia started producing once again Vin de Constance.

I believe I tasted Vin de Constance one night on the Blue Train at the suggestion of the other couple at the table, I enjoyed the taste but I was too unaware at the time to know its background. As I read up on it, I found it is infrequently produced (you need a “good year” to produce it) and it’s hard to find (it helps to “know somebody”), all of which makes it quite expensive. And all of which made me want to have visited both Groot and Klein Constantia.

So where’s the happy ending? I have to jump ahead in the story to tell it. Once on the Rovos train, I spoke to Werner the barman, who doubled as wine steward at dinner. Actually, he was unfamiliar with it (I filled him in), but he said that when the train reaches Pretoria, Rovos Rail’s home town, he always goes shopping to fill in holes in his inventory, so he’d look for it.

As it turns out, he went to four different shops and only at the last one did they say they had some; “put away in the back” they had four bottles, which Werner snapped up. So, leaving Pretoria, I had after dinner my first glass of Vin de Constance where I knew the history behind of what I was drinking. On another night, the Capetonians I was dining with one evening were well aware of what it was, and were glad to find out it was on the train, since it wasn’t on the wine list (didn’t I say you have to “know someone”, and they now knew me, and I knew Werner?). So, even without visiting the actual vineyard, we have a Happy Ending to the Constantia story.

Rovos Rail   In 1989 Rovos Rail was formed in South Africa by Rohan Vos, who truncated his own name to form the name of the company. His modus operandi was to rehabilitate old rolling stock, both carriages and engines, and run a limited-schedule, superior, luxury rail service both within South Africa and nearby, such as into Namibia or to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. Fifteen years ago, in 1993, he extended his network far to the northeast, beyond Victoria Falls, to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, with one round trip a year. He now is doing five such round trips a year. He tells me his success is because of the volume of services offered, which is the only thing that justifies the infrastructure involved in running a railroad. He points out how limited-service luxury operations in North America and Europe keep on changing owners, since it’s difficult financially running such limited operations. He’s been asked to take over various lines elsewhere, but he cannot see how he could run them at a profit. Within southern Africa rail gauge determines how far he can go, since the trains here run on a rather unique Cape Gauge of 3’ 6” or 1067mm, classifying it as a type of narrow gauge.

Digression on rail gauge: Here’s a quick review on rail gauge as an extension of the discussion in Spain and Portugal (2007/10). Rail gauge is the interior width between two parallel tracks. It determines axle width, and ultimately coach width, although the latter still can vary somewhat. Broader gauges give a steadier, smoother ride. Narrower gauges are cheaper to build, given the tighter curves and narrower tunnels required. Below is a selection of gauges, broad to standard to narrow.

2140 mm / 7’ ¼” The Great Western Railway in England, designed by Brunel (1838 to 1882, when it was standardized), the whopping broad-gauge granddaddy of them all. Compare it to meter gauge below. Don’t you think that extra quarter-inch was gilding the lily?

1668 mm / 5’ 5.7” Iberian gauge in Spain and Portugal.

1520 mm / 4’ 11.8” Russian gauge, also in Finland, Baltics, etc.

1435 mm / 4’ 8.5” Standard gauge, used in most places around the world.

1067 mm / 3’ 6” Cape gauge, in South Africa and adjacent states.

1000 mm / 3’ 3.4” Meter gauge, used in East Africa and elsewhere.

The evolution of something as odd as Cape gauge is interesting. They started building out of Cape Town with standard gauge, then came to their first mountain range barrier. Cost was an issue, so they wanted to downgrade the gauge. The decision ended at a compromise between standard and meter, still it was a poor decision, since, as soon as they passed those first few mountains, it was wide open plains all the way, and there was no benefit from then on from any sort of a narrower gauge. It’s typical penny-wise-and-pound-foolish. Cape gauge extends into Zimbabwe and halfway through Zambia, and in recent decades when the Chinese wanted to make an imprint on East Africa, they built the high-quality Tazara Railway (Tanzania Zambia Railway Authority) from where the Cape gauge left off in Zambia to Dar es Salaam on the sea in Tanzania. They logically extended this gauge, even though other routes in Tanzania are meter gauge. In any case, Cape gauge does reach from Cape Town to Dar es Salaam, hence the possibility of this extended Cape-to-Dar rail trip, but not beyond, such as Cape-to-Cairo.

Cape to Dar   I find it hard to picture scale, and I’m sure I’m not alone. Where are these “new” places? How far apart are they? I wasn’t sure, for instance, how far the Blue Train ride was, and also just how chilly it could be in this season in South Africa. Let me try to give some landmarks, using Cape Town and Dar es Salaam as end points. The trip is to the northeast, so let’s figure just how far NORTH and how far EAST we are going.

In Africa, Dar es Salaam is 7° south of the equator.
Above Australia, Jakarta is at 6° S.
In the Americas, at the NE bulge of Brazil, Recife is at 8° S.

In Africa, Cape Town is down at 34°.
It’s as far south as Sydney is in Australia (also 34°S).
It’s also as far south as Buenos Aires in the Americas (35°S).

Therefore, going NORTH from Cape to Dar is like going north from Sydney to Jakarta or going north from Buenos Aires to Recife in the corner of Brazil.

In Africa, Cape Town is 18° east of Greenwich.
In Europe, Stockholm is also 18° E and Budapest is 19° E.

In Africa, Dar es Salaam is over at 39° E.
In Europe, Moscow is at 38° E.

Therefore, going EAST from Cape to Dar is like going east from either Stockholm or Budapest to Moscow.

The distance north we are covering is just slightly more than the distance east. The total track distance to the northeast comes to 5733 kilometers / 3562 miles. In North America, this winding rail route would be like going as the crow flies from Los Angeles on the Pacific to Saint John’s, Newfoundland, on the Atlantic (5550km/3449mi), or in Eurasia from Moscow to Beijing (5802km/3605mi).

Pride of Africa   The name of the Rovos train is the Pride of Africa. This October in Hawaii I’ll be sailing on a ship called the Pride of America, so apparently there’s enough pride to go around.

The day of departure we met in the special Rovos Lounge adjacent to the Cape Town Station (the Blue Train lounge is in the station itself). Refreshments were served, and Rohan Vos spoke. Very enjoyable music was provided by two women playing violin and classical guitar, and delightful touch. They went from the Barcarolle to a tango which was very familiar and to which I did a few steps (the sparkling wine helped); when I checked during a pause, it was indeed Por una cabeza, the tango danced in the Oak Room by Al Pacino and Gabrielle Anwar in Scent of a Woman (2004/17). I requested other tangos, such as La cumparsita and El choclo, and they graciously complied. As small groups of passengers were accompanied across the way to board the train, the two musicians had moved to the steps leading outside, continuing their playing. It was a very gracious sendoff from Cape Town.

The deep-maroon Pride of Africa runs 21 cars. Behind two supply cars and a staff car come the passenger cars, including 13 sleepers. Unfortunately, I’m in the second sleeper from the front, which means it’s a long walk to the observation car (17 coaches, including my own), but it’s about the only exercise one gets. All cars are restored, and reflect a rich mahogany colour. The observation car is enclosed with a bar for about 2/3 of its length, with the last 1/3, quite uniquely, being open-sided, that is, you exit through a door to an area with five big openings, the first one on each side being a window, then an open space, and the back being entirely open as well. At first the weather was too chilly to enjoy the open space, but as we moved north, it warmed up and much more time was spent outside.

In the middle of the train were the other public spaces. Walking back from my car, after a few cars I reached the other lounge, where the lectures were held, then a restaurant car, kitchen car, and the other restaurant car. The first dining car was 1930’s in style, while the second was a 1920’s Edwardian coach with pillars and fancy carvings above. Food and all beverages everywhere were all-inclusive (see “Vin de Constance” above).

As I said earlier discussing the Blue Train, I didn’t take the large rooms here with a tub. What I had was called “Pullman”, with four cabins to a coach. A double bed folded down, there was a storage cabinet and work area, and adjacent was a bathroom with an ample shower space and small closet.

I have two comments about the train itself, which should be read with the full understanding that I was delighted with this train and the trip and totally recommend both. First, the train needs a public address system in general, and in particular because of early and late arrivals at stations. I’ve been told that a public address system is in the process of being installed, and two cars, including mine, already have speakers in the corridors.

This is the only train I’ve ever seen that has shutters, which are quite unusual. Unlike the Blue Train, the windows here do open (by pulling down), but on the inside there are also heavy metal shutters that you let down to see out, but are advised to put up when not in your room. There are no shades, and these shutters afford the only privacy. Rohan says it’s always been typical in South Africa to have these shutters. They’re painted mahogany to match the wooden walls, and the slats are so fine you can not see out, nor can any amount of light come in. Rohan says they should be light since they’re made of aluminium (aluminum). They either catch at about 1/5 of the way down, or otherwise open the whole way. The affect is that, when walking along a corridor, instead of seeing the countryside fly by, you are walking in a tunnel, unless a staff member has opened a single shutter. Also, when returning to your room even on the brightest afternoon, you enter a tomb. I would suggest the addition of curtains, at least in the cabins, so that the shutters can be left down more frequently.

I need to state that all wariness of coming to the southern part of Africa is gone, and I begin to wonder what was concerning me. I find I can relate to so many things here, and during the train ride, one thing has become more interesting than the next. I like southern Africa, I like South Africa better, and I like Cape Town best (but that last I knew I would).

It also strikes me that this is amazingly a Z trip, and that’s ZED (or ZEE if you will). We will be going to ZZZimbabwe, then ZZZambia, separated by the ZZZambeZZZi River, and the last stop will be ZZZanZZZibar. And don’t forget the ZZZebras.

First Three Stops   We made three stops in the first days, after which we’d be getting off the train overnight on two different occasions, at Madikwe Game Reserve and at Victoria Falls. First these three initial stops.

MATJIESFONTEIN Although this town had some strong points going for it, this stop later on that first day ended up being in the dark and the cold. It’s a tiny Victorian town dating from 1884, and is a National Historic Monument, restored in 1970. It has one main street, which is right across from the station. Aside from a shop or two, it’s the hotel with a number of restored public rooms that is of some interest, including the nice, warm fireplaces.

KIMBERLEY The next day, just eight days after stopping at Kimberley in the dark on the Blue Train, the Pride of Africa stopped there as well on a bright, sunny afternoon. I was on the same bus with Dirk, the guide from the week before, and I chatted with him about several things of interest, including Afrikaans.

Diamond mining depends on two events having occurred. First, tremendous pressures on carbon deposits two kilometers below the surface cause a crystalline form of carbon to form, which are diamonds in the rough. Then, a volcanic upward thrust is necessary if these diamonds are to approach the surface, where they can be mined. These areas of thrust are called pipes, and the most famous one is the Big Hole in Kimberley. With the discovery of diamonds, surface mining by hand had started, involving multiple claims, until Cecil Rhodes had consolidated all claims under the name de Beers (2008/9).

Essentially, the Big Hole is shaped like a huge martini glass. It is funnel-shaped at the top, where the mining had taken place, then where the “stem of the glass” would be is a shaft with debris on the bottom and groundwater and rainwater above. It is 400 meters / 1200 feet in each dimension, across, front-to-back, and deep. All diamond mining in Kimberley petered out by 1914, and the old mines are being filled in, but the Big Hole is being maintained as is for historical purposes. What I had seen eight days earlier under floodlights, I now saw much more clearly in sunlight. Viewing takes place from a modern suspended platform at the edge.

While the others saw the video I had already seen, I stopped to chat with Renee, who seemed to be in charge of the museum. She had asked the previous week to chat with me a bit, and again on arrival this day, and I got a lot of insight on the museum and on life in South Africa today.

The diamond display was open this time, and on walking into a vault, you see the large display of samples of diamonds that had come out of the Big Hole. The majority are colored diamonds, yellow predominating, and two blue ones being the most rare and most valuable. Outside the vault is a large number of display alcoves with COPIES of the most famous diamonds in the world, such as the Hope, Cullinan, Kooh-i-Noor, and many others.

Here’s a language item: you may have heard of carob seeds, used in making health drinks. For a long time it was thought that all carob seeds were of equal size, so diamond weight was calculated in “carobs”, a word that eventually developed into “carats”. The old system actually being quite unscientific, it was regularized in 1907 so that a “metric carat” of 200 milligrams became the standard. This standard was adopted by de Beers in 1920, and today, any reading of carats is to be understood as being metric carats.

Outside the museum was a reconstructed village, well worth a stroll, with some authentic buildings having been moved to the site, of Kimberley in its heyday.

We had been told to look to the left about ten minutes after the train left Kimberley to see a large lake inhabited by some 23,000 flamingoes. Some birds were quite close, and others further away demonstrated a typical flamingo silhouette in the late afternoon sun.

PRETORIA Back to Pretoria! Shortly before reaching Pretoria, Rovos Rail’s home location, we stopped at a station where the diesel engine was removed, and one of Rovos’s own steam engines was attached to bring the Pride of Africa home for a few hours. Anyone interested was invited to climb into the cab of the locomotive before we left to look at all the gauges and the roaring firebox, automatically screw-fed below floor level with coal from the tender behind, or to sit in the driver’s seat. I, as a rail enthusiast, enjoyed doing this as a curiosity, but the many rail fanatics on board went close to ballistic with excitement at this opportunity, cameras flashing. Please note my careful distinction between rail enthusiast and rail fanatic, or, for that matter, between enthusiasts and fanatics in any field of interest.

After circling Johannesburg, the Pride of Africa skipped the Pretoria Station (which it used to use at one time) to stop at the private Rovos Rail station at Capital Park, some three kilometers further north. It had been an abandoned locomotive maintenance facility from the 1930’s, rehabilitated by Rovos as its own restoration and maintenance facility central office. Before we left later in the day, Rohan gave a tour of the facility. Some carriages were being worked on, but the most impressive were three restored steam engines. Actually, even more impressive than that was the rusted, decrepit hulk of another steam engine which in a matter of months would look like the other restored ones.

But before all that, in Pretoria we were to have lunch and a city tour. I had heard in advance that lunch was either to be at the facility at Capital Park or at another location I was familiar with. I pushed for this other location, and it indeed did work out.

I will refer to my quiet Sunday afternoon in Pretoria the previous week, including the stroll in Bergers Park, then walking across to Melrose House, not going in, but sitting in a gazebo on the grounds to the side of it and noticing an expanse of lawn behind it, leading to a back street (2008/9). Well, the other location we could have had lunch in, and did, was Melrose House! I had imagined somehow using a facility within the house, but what happened was even more satisfying. We arrived at the back street and entered that expanse of lawn, which was decorated for a Victorian garden party. There were numerous white cloth-covered tables under umbrellas, and even the chairs had fitted cloths over them. To one side was a bar, with staff presenting flutes of sparkling wine, and the buffet was to the other side. What a pleasant experience. From where I sat, I could see that gazebo I had been sitting in by myself at the side of the house that quiet Sunday eight days earlier.

I was concerned that the others wouldn’t see the charm of the front of Melrose House, nor its location opposite Burgers Park, but something better happened. It being a Monday, when museums are closed, Rovos had made special arrangements for our garden party to afterwards go through the house (entering from a back door). It was most attractively restored, but what impressed me most, it being in a “busy” Victorian style, was the different wallpapers in every room of the house, so typical of the time. Each wallpaper pattern had been researched and the wallpaper restored or replaced.

I was glad I had seen Pretoria as I had, because driving through its traffic jams on a weekday was a whole different experience. Even the atmosphere on Church Square wasn’t the same. We went outside the center of town to the Union Buildings, seat of the government, and then later up to the top of the highest hill to see the Voortrekker Monument. This was built in 1938 as the holy-of-holies for the Afrikaaners to commemorate the Great Trek away from the British on the coast a century earlier, and particularly the Battle of Blood River of 1838 where the Afrikaaners defeated the Zulus. It is in Art Deco style (and is a major example of that style), but people do think it looks like a toaster, or, my favorite, a 1930’s-style radio with an arched, fabric-covered speaker. The Afrikaaners had established their own Transvaal Republic under Paul Kruger here, free from the British, with whom they had signed a treaty. The irony remains that, with the discovery of gold in Johannesburg just south of Pretoria, the British tore up the treaty and annexed the Transvaal to South Africa, so that the Afrikaaners never did evade the British, the Great Trek notwithstanding. One major remnant of those events is that Pretoria remains the seat of government of South Africa.

The original plan after Pretoria, and the route followed in the past, was for the Pride of Africa to turn right (east) and go to a game lodge near Kruger National Park for two nights, then to turn north to enter Zimbabwe at Beitbridge, a traditional entry point. However, it’s been determined that the track conditions in that section of Zimbabwe are abominable and getting worse, given the financial and political situation in Zimbabwe, and it is no longer safe to run a train there. Therefore, some six weeks before leaving, we were informed that instead, we would turn left (west) at Pretoria and head for a very popular private park, Madikwe Game Reserve, in South Africa just before the border with Botswana, and after Madikwe, would go via Botswana to enter Zimbabwe at Plumtree instead, on our way to Victoria Falls. An additional advantage is that Madikwe is malaria-free compared to Kruger National Park, and has all the same animals to see, if not more. The only minor negative to this is that Kruger is a more famous park, but aside from that, I was glad to add one more country, Botswana, to my roster visited. Two lodges were mentioned at Madikwe, Tau and another. Since Tau was so well written up online and is the oldest and biggest at Madikwe, I successfully pushed to be there (actually, 56 out of the 70 of us filled Tau, with 14 going to another, smaller lodge). So, on to Madikwe Game Reserve and Tau Game Lodge, and afterward, Victoria Falls!