The Gabarone compartment on the Pride of Africa train
More adventures at the Radisson Blu in Cape Town. The next morning we get up, turn on the shower, and there’s no hot water. Because of the Cape Town water crisis, we are very reluctant to leave the water running to see if it eventually warms up. We assume there isn’t any hot water. Down goes Steve to Reception (because the phone sill doesn’t work) to report this, but he can’t get the elevator to recognize his room number card. Finally ends up taking a different elevator. Talks to reception and goes back to the room. Room key still not working in the elevator. Whatever. Five minutes later a guy comes to the room and he leaves the water running until it gets hot. Go figure.
Breakfast is great. It’s a beautiful day, and they have an absolutely fabulously laid out breakfast buffet. We eat out of doors and watch the seagulls and crows hop around the tables looking for food. It’s very entertaining, and we put behind us the inconveniences and our disappointment that the original plan for us to stay at the famous Mount Nelson Hotel got scrapped.
We head out of our room about 9:15 to meet our guide in the lobby, as well as our traveling companions. We meet Henna, our travel agency’s representative. This is the kind of careful watch we are under on this trip. Every time we transfer from train to bus to plane to whatever, we will be met by a local person that will hold our hands and guide us through whatever travel transition we are on. This is service on an entirely new level for us, and we are grateful for it. Given the choice between being shepherded everywhere or being left on our own to figure it out like truly intrepid travelers, we gladly accept the assistance and oversight.
It’s only a twenty-minute trip to the railroad station, but gregarious Henna is full of additional information. Each person we meet has a different take on what’s happening in South Africa. The situation is complicated and there are a lot of parts to the puzzle about this amazing country. As for the “townships” where hundreds of thousands of people live in abject poverty, Henna adds a new perspective. Not only is the country of South Africa having to overcome the damage done by apartheid a generation ago, but also they are now having to contend with an influx of refugees from all over Africa. I am not sure what is driving this exodus from places like Nigeria (a country to which she referred specifically), but in other countries, it’s poverty, violence, and a desperate attempt to improve their lives. AIDS is also a pandemic scourge for all of sub-Saharan Africa. 11% of the population of South Africa has the disease, and there are other countries with higher rates and less money to deal with the problem. That probably is an additional reason.
She also discusses the basic problem of all of Africa, which is that these are all nations of incredible, comfortable existence for some and hopeless poverty for the vast majority. There really is a small middle class in comparison with developed nations. As we proceed through South Africa, I will return to this subject because it is one of the most prominent features of the African countries we have visited. But let’s move on for now.
Speaking of the incredible, comfortable existence for some, Cathy and I are about to experience it on a grand scale. We arrive at the Cape Town railway station, where we are met by Rovos Rail staff members, who hand us champagne and usher us over a red carpet into a separate room in the station occupied by Rovos Rail as a waiting room. Two musicians are playing background music, and we are seated on luxurious couches and chairs and offered small sandwiches and canapés.
The eight of us from the ship sit and chat as we eat and sip champagne. We look at our gorgeous surroundings and know for sure that we are embarking on a very special trip operating a level that exceeds even the very high Oceania Cruises standards. In a few minutes, we are addressed by Rohan Vos, the owner, yes, the owner, of Rovos Rail.
The organization has a very interesting history, which I will not go into and instead direct you to Rovos.com. The company operates several trains, the marquis one being ours, The Pride of Africa. Mr. Vos is a man in his late 60s, and seems to have a low-key, almost self-effacing personality for a person of his accomplishments (Question from a guest: “How did you get into the business?” Answer from Rohan Vos: “We drink too much.”). He introduces us to his train staff and the train itself, giving us a great deal of detailed information (his attention to detail is apparently legendary).
He follows that with advice on some security and scheduling concerns. First of all, the louvered wooden shades on our windows should always, always be left up (i.e., closed) at station stops. To not do so is to invite someone to break a window and “go shopping” (as he puts it). Secondly, do not wander away from the train unaccompanied, period.
As for scheduling, you can hear the frustration in his voice as he explains that the schedule as written is only a best-case scenario. His dealings with South African Rail, which is publicly operated, are, shall we say, challenging, especially because he is operating what is advertised as “The Most Luxurious Train in the World.” In the urban areas, he says, it is not uncommon to lose power (the entire route we are on is electrified) because electric cable has been stolen from the catenary or the signal systems. Often, a locomotive is promised (South African Rail provides locomotives and crew to operate them) and isn’t available when needed. The track structure is sketchy in places, limiting the top speed to 60 kilometers at best and 20 KPH at worst [moving ahead, let me just say that we experienced speeds way faster than that. Not sure what Mr. Vos was saying there]. And it will be necessary to change locos three times due to changes in voltage. Sorry for all the railroad geek detail, but I need to record this at the very least for my own interest.
We are ready to board. The train can accommodate 72 passengers in its thirteen cars, but this trip will only have 36, twenty of whom will be boarding and hour or so up the line. We are led out to the train, and Steve and Cathy Knight are the first ones to be invited to board. We are escorted to our compartment, named Gabarone, in car 3460, and we find our names are printed on a card on the door. Our suitcase, of course, is already there, and very soon our attendant Thuli Ndlovu introduces herself. We unpack (there is plenty of room to completely store everything we have brought) and then Train Manager Daphne Mabala and Deputy Manager Catheren Hood drop in to introduce themselves, as they are doing to everyone.
We now have the opportunity to peruse the literature left with us. This includes: 1) an itinerary listing highlights of what we will see and the scheduled times we should see them; 2) a complete menu of every meal we will have aboard the train; 3) a guest list with the names of every guest, their compartment name, car number, and country of origin shown, as well as the full name of each staff member and the car to which they are assigned; and 4) a certificate attesting that Mr. Stephen & Mrs. Catherine Knight, on February 10th, 2018 did “ … ride on board the Greatest Train on Earth…”. The certificate is numbered and signed by Rohan Vos.
We are now moving through the suburbs of Cape Town at a pretty slow pace. There are many commuter trains to maneuver around. The train makes a stop about half an hour into our journey, and we guess that it is to board the other twenty passengers, who turn out to be a group of Norwegians that have been at a resort. We have no idea what the station stop is, as signage is not as prominent as you would think it might be, a situation we will encounter through much of the journey.
Lunch will be at 13:00 hours (1:00pm for us North Americans) and is announced by a gong. We are asked to all proceed promptly when we hear this signal. Now here I will explain the order of the thirteen cars: generator car (behind the locomotive), staff dormitory car, kitchen car, dining car, seven sleeper cars, a lounge car, and, lastly, an observation car with a floor to ceiling window at the rear. Cathy and Steve are in the second car behind the dining car. This is a big advantage for meals, of course, but a big disadvantage if we want to head for the lounge or observation car. We decide to wait until after lunch to explore the rest of the train.
The gong goes off (actually a very pleasant series of electronic notes) and we head for lunch. This time we are pretty much the first ones there (that’ll change as passengers wise up) and sit down at a table for two on the right side. The car soon fills up, and Daphne, the Train Manager, makes an announcement. There is a mechanical problem with one of the “tyres” (wheels) on the observation car. It will be necessary to reduce speed and then drop this car somewhere along the way. Uh oh. Problem One. Oh, well, we have missed our chance to ride on that car.
But hey, lunch has begun. And by lunch we mean wine, paired with each course, then more wine, some more extraordinary food, interspersed with more glasses of wine, finished off with dessert and wine (as well as coffee and tea, of course). Did we mention wine? Okay, so we have to make a decision. Should we be judicious in our consumption, or should we just go for it and get the full Rovos Rail experience? The answer we choose, of course, is the latter. And trust us, we are not alone.
Cathy will now take over and describe the service and the food we are enjoying. Lunch appetizer: little soufflé dish of bobotie, served warm with fruit chutney and apricot, julienne pepper and kiwi fruit salad with almonds; main course: rosettes of sole filled with salmon mousse on a salad of carrots, pea pods and cucumber with a soy and ginger dressing; cheese course: drunken pecorino with wild leaves salad and sliced apple; dessert: South African melktert, a sweet pastry crust tart with creamy milk filling and a Koeksister, a small syrup soaked doughnut. The service was impeccable with cutlery for every course (although we get that on the ship too) and glasses for each wine with each course.
Lunch lasts almost two hours, and it is generally agreed that the next activity will be naps. We all find our way back to our compartments, and the Oceania Eight all agree to see each other at the lounge car later. When we arise, we are stopped at the Worcester station. This unplanned stop is so an attempt can be made to repair the observation car wheel. There are at least a half dozen maintenance people from South African Rail there to help. We are there for an hour, and the decision is made that the observation car must indeed be left behind. The next task is to move all the food and wine and cutlery and china and water and coffee and everything else from the observation car to the lounge car. By that time, we have met several of our traveling companions in said lounge, and we watch this procedure unfold. Eventually, the observation car in which we have so much been looking forward to riding, is uncoupled and hauled away. Shucks!
Cathy heads back to our compartment but Steve stays in the lounge to have a couple of Castle beers and socialize. Everybody pretty much shares the same attitude: regardless of what happens, we are going to make the most of this trip. Little or no griping or complaining, which is just the attitude we had hoped to encounter. Our traveling companions are very convivial and easy to spend time with.
Steve goes back to join Cathy around 16h30, using the way time is written locally. Dinner is at 19h30 (7:30pm). Time to watch the sun set as we begin our trek across the Western Cape area. We are hours from our departure, and yet are still in the Western Cape, which gives us a sense of the size of South Africa. Our trip is 994 kilometers (650 miles) from Cape Town to Pretoria, and our pace is leisurely, mostly by design but sometimes by circumstance. Regardless, South Africa is a large place. Part of this sense of distance, however, results from the fact that we don’t know where the heck we are most of the time. There are few station stops, mostly to change engines and/or crews, and there just aren’t that many towns, period.
Of course, by now we are three or four hours behind schedule because of the observation car problem, and should have made a brief stop in the little town of Matjiesfontein (pronounced Mikey’s Fonteen [for Fountain]) at 17h45, but we are still hours from there. We are Meanwhile, it’s coming upon 19h30, and another party … er, I mean dinner … is beginning. This is a formal occasion, which is part of the fun of being on a luxury train. Cathy looks beautiful in a classic black dress and pearls, and Steve has brought a suit and tie and dress shoes.
Tonight we sit with M and J. Now these are the very first people we met on this trip, right in the lobby of the Intercontinental Hotel in Miami waiting for the bus to the ship, and I still don’t know their actual names for sure. They are listed as Mr. Joseph and Mrs. Jaylayne Wheatley on the Rovos Rail Guest List. Mike hails from Richmond, VA and Joyce (one of her pseudonyms, I guess) is from Kansas. They live on the Potomac River in Maryland, and Mike was a very successful designer of prosthetic devices for returning combat vets until such time as he sold his company. They are lively, interesting people that are very fun to spend time with. They are doing the ATW thing, and we look forward to spending much more time with them. Dinner was as much fun as expected, with another four courses of food paired with three different wines plus Amarula, a South African cream liqueur, paired with dessert. Appetizer: parmesan mussels with creamy hollandaise sauce; main: Karoo lamb shank (deboned, no less) with mashed potatoes and green beans (tied with a tiny slice of zucchini); cheese: Boland camembert with melon preserve and a water biscuit; dessert: berry malva pudding with cinnamon syrup. This syrup came in a little shot glass and none of us could figure out what to do with it so we drank it. Turns out we were supposed to pour it over the pudding.
Dinner concludes around 10pm, and party hardy (is that right, or is it party hearty?) M & J head for the lounge car. A very short stop will be made in Matjiesfontein whenever we get there, but Cathy and Steve do what Cathy and Steve always do, and we are asleep by 10:30pm. What a day! And we have just begun!
