Chaos surrounded us. Casual porters rolling baggage carts zigzagged between vehicles. Commuters spilled from the bus terminal onto the sidewalk, the place they sat on suitcases and duffel luggage. Minibus taxis zoomed by way of the congestion, pedestrians be damned.
Our automobile crawled previous a barbed-wire fence and reached a sliding gate, the place all that separated my spouse and me from the empty lot on the opposite aspect was a safety guard. “Blue Prepare,” I mentioned, and the guard waved us by way of.
We pulled as much as a blue carpet subsequent to Cape City’s central prepare station, the place two butlers in blue vests and white gloves greeted us by identify and unloaded our baggage earlier than ushering us right into a ready room that was decidedly extra upscale than the one within the adjoining constructing for bus vacationers. We lounged on plush sofas with just a few dozen different passengers, enjoyable to piano music and having fun with a diffusion of fruit, pastries, sandwiches and glowing wine.
I had traveled to this gorgeous South African metropolis, the place the ocean meets the mountains, final December to take pleasure in a little bit of Gatsby-like luxurious by taking a visit on the nation’s legendary Blue Train. It’s an journey that turns a two-hour flight (plus a 45-minute drive) from Cape City to Pretoria right into a two-night, 994-mile expertise, with all of the pampering and delightful vistas you might probably ask for.
The Blue Prepare, whose origins date again a century, is supposed to evoke exclusivity. And that’s precisely what you’re feeling if you’re ready within the lounge, a separate world from the gritty city commotion outdoors. The tin shacks you flew over when touchdown on the Cape City airport had been out of sight, as had been the individuals who approached your automobile asking for cash, and people who pitched tents on avenue corners within the shadow of shiny condominiums and waterfront eating places.
The whiplash between extra and destitution is one thing that I nonetheless haven’t grown comfy with in my almost 4 years because the Johannesburg bureau chief for The Instances. South Africa is probably the most unequal nation on the planet, in keeping with the World Financial institution, a actuality on show nearly anyplace you journey throughout this huge nation of greater than 60 million individuals. The inequality is in some ways the legacy of apartheid, a decades-long racial caste system by which the nation’s former white-minority authorities violently segregated nonwhite South Africans into communities that had been left to rot.
Through the thick of apartheid simply over 40 years in the past, Joseph Lelyveld, one in all my predecessors on this job and a former govt editor at The Instances, chronicled this similar journey on the Blue Prepare in an article for the Travel section. Though it was the nation’s solely desegregated prepare on the time, it was uncommon to see Black passengers due to the excessive price. The prepare, he wrote, supplied “a window on a society that’s compartmentalized on or off the rails.”
Lelyveld, who died final yr, added, “Exterior the prepare, you’ll be able to catch some fairly telling glimpses of the uneven methods by which land and labor are apportioned beneath the South African system.”
Now, three many years after that racist system had been undone, I questioned how the journey and the nation it showcases may need modified. Racial segregation is now not authorized, and South Africans could now reside and work wherever they need, no matter pores and skin shade.
However from the second I walked into the lounge, I noticed that this journey would supply a firsthand view of the staggering inequality and racial divide that proceed to bedevil South Africa.
The price of the prepare stays prohibitive for a lot of. Charges, which embody seven meals and as many drinks as you need over a roughly 54-hour journey, begin at almost $4,000 for 2 individuals for the bottom room sort within the off-season, and climb to greater than $6,000 for probably the most luxurious rooms throughout excessive season. Third-party distributors supply considerably discounted packages for South African residents that embody resort stays.
My spouse and I accounted for 2 of the 4 Black passengers. The handfuls of different passengers had been white — principally foreigners, but additionally a handful of South Africans. It was the opposite approach round for the workers: All however one in all them had been both Black or coloured, a multiracial classification in South Africa.
Our departure time got here and went whereas we waited. The prepare supervisor stood on the entrance of the lounge to supply an evidence: Somebody had pelted the prepare with stones because it approached the station that morning, and technicians had been repairing a shattered window.
Whereas the pelting might have been the results of youthful mischief, I couldn’t assist however take into consideration one thing many South Africans have informed me: The ostentatious show of extra by the privileged few can really feel like a slap within the face to the plenty who’ve been excluded from post-apartheid prosperity. And few issues scream extra greater than a prepare with sizzling showers, air-con and an open bar crawling previous settlements the place many individuals reside in shacks with out working water or electrical energy.
The Blue Prepare was established when the moneyed elite from world wide descended on South Africa seeking gold and wanted a solution to get from the Cape harbor to the mines close to Johannesburg. Naturally, the workaday passenger coaches wouldn’t do the job. That led to the creation of coaches decked out with what had been luxurious options on the time: card tables, ceiling followers and sinks with cold and warm water.
When it was time to go, our assigned butler led us down the hallway to our suite, one in all 37 on the 18-car prepare. The suites range by mattress sort and loo facilities. Ours had a double mattress that was folded up into the wall through the day, leaving a two-seat sofa to lounge on whereas we soaked up the view outdoors an enormous window. Our rest room had a bath with a gold, hand-held showerhead. Our cabin featured a tv with Netflix, (spotty) Wi-Fi and a distant management for the curtains and blinds.
The prepare evoked a kind of Gilded Age, with paneled partitions, brass sconces and Italian marble tiles. There have been two lounge vehicles (one for people who smoke) with plush sectionals and a curved granite-top bar. For formal meals there was a eating automobile with white tablecloths.
Prickly nuances and fascinating surroundings
We took off round 2 p.m. on a Thursday, with our arrival in Pretoria scheduled for late Saturday afternoon. As a result of we had been leaving late, there was no formal lunch; as an alternative, the workers arrange mild bites within the commentary automobile — the final automobile on the prepare, with the most important home windows.
I loaded up a plate with grilled prawns, risotto balls, rooster with a candy chile glaze, and skewers with cheese, tomato and cucumber, and settled in because the prepare crept out of central Cape City. The primary a part of the journey lower by way of a number of townships, the outlying communities that the federal government restricted nonwhite South Africans to throughout apartheid and that immediately nonetheless largely undergo the results of poor funding.
There have been piles of trash on both aspect of the monitor in some locations. Dice-shaped tin properties hugged the tracks so carefully that it appeared as if the corrugated roofs of some would possibly scrape the prepare. A personal safety automobile drove alongside the tracks; a workers member later informed me that safety escorted the prepare by way of sure city areas to thwart potential vandals. Some locals stared because the prepare jogged previous, whereas giddy youngsters waved and smiled.
As we took within the humble communities in entrance of us and the attractive inexperienced mountains within the distance, a loud thud rocked the commentary automobile. Nearly everybody snapped their heads round, wide-eyed. Somebody had whipped a rock on the prepare.
“What sort of individuals are they?” sighed a South African passenger, who informed me she was fearful principally about what guests would possibly consider her nation.
Some guests had ample alternative to develop these opinions earlier than they boarded.
“Many issues modified. Constructive,” a Swiss girl sitting close to me informed a white South African girl, reflecting on the distinction between her first journey to the nation within the early Eighties and now. Again then, every thing was separated, she mentioned.
However the South African passenger defined to the Swiss girl and her husband how society, in her view, had damaged down for the reason that finish of apartheid. She described downtown Johannesburg as “a no-go zone” and mentioned in the event you drive there alone as a girl, “undoubtedly, you’ll be hijacked.” It was a spot filled with squatters who burn down buildings, she mentioned, suggesting that issues went downhill when South Africans as soon as confined to townships obtained their freedom.
“With integration these individuals all moved into the town heart, and now it’s a large number,” she mentioned.
These sentiments aren’t stunning. I’ve heard South Africans of all races and ages complain about lawlessness and decaying infrastructure. Crime charges are excessive throughout the nation, and a fire in Johannesburg that killed dozens two years in the past introduced world scrutiny to the city’s blight.
There are sophisticated causes elements of South Africa are struggling. However nobody appeared within the temper to delve into the prickly nuances of mass dispossession, inherited wealth disparities, poor governance or the affect of world finance. We had been just below three hours into the journey and the surroundings grew to become so fascinating that just about everybody within the automobile fell right into a silent awe.
The prepare, perched above the Little Berg River, snaked its approach by way of a valley north of the wine city of Paarl, with rocky inexperienced and yellow hillsides round it. We chugged on by way of Western Cape province landscapes so constantly majestic that you might simply start to take them as a right. Flat fields the place cattle foraged had been illuminated gold by the setting solar, with hulking mountains within the background.
An ‘sincere’ panorama
The prepare stopped for a water refill on the Worcester station. That’s the place we had been served dinner by the attentive workers who had been desperate to spoil us. Dinner was meant to be a chic affair, with males requested to put on blazers and ladies night attire. Choices for the three-course menu included uncooked salmon, rice noodles, pumpkin soup and lamb noisette.
The cease was scheduled for about half-hour, however the prepare stayed for greater than an hour and a half, by way of our whole dinner. No clarification was given. Some South Africans had warned me earlier than the journey to be ready for surprising delays. The nation’s rail infrastructure has been beleaguered for years, partly due to corruption and mismanagement inside Transnet, the state-owned rail firm that owns and operates the Blue Prepare.
By the point we had been shifting once more it was dusk, too darkish to see what my predecessor, Lelyveld, had described as a “dramatic ascent by way of the Hex River Cross, the place it loops again on itself 16 occasions in the midst of climbing 1,600 toes in solely 15 miles.”
After we retired to our room, the mattress was neatly ready by the butler, who had left sweets on our nightstand. Within the morning, the luxurious greenery of the Western Cape had given solution to the brown shrubs of the semi-arid Northern Cape province. The surroundings was totally different however no much less spectacular. This was the Blue Prepare at its best, showcasing South Africa’s huge and numerous magnificence.
There was one thing sincere about it, too. The landscapes themselves informed a narrative of South Africa’s journey as a nation. The prepare rolled by way of Hutchinson, a former railway junction within the Northern Cape the place you might see that the glory days of South African rail had been prior to now. The brick buildings within the previous station had been gutted and deserted, with out roofs. However we additionally obtained a glimpse of what might be a part of the nation’s financial future, passing a wind farm and a photo voltaic discipline.
Breakfast was pastries, fruit, eggs, bacon and French toast. We crossed the mighty Orange River, after which it was lunch time.
Just a little later, we stopped within the metropolis of Kimberley for the journey’s lone tour: the Massive Gap diamond mine. The primary diamond discovery there was made in 1871, setting off a rush that may ultimately make Kimberley one of the crucial productive and largest hand-dug diamond mines on the planet. It closed 43 years and 14.5 million carats later. Many years after that, the well-known diamond firm, De Beers, which obtained its begin in Kimberley, funded a museum on the location.
We browsed the displays, which included a reproduction underground mine. From a suspension bridge that shakes with the wind, we obtained a view down into the Massive Gap, which seems to be like a turquoise lake on the backside of a deep crater. A plaque on the bridge paid homage to the individuals of the Royal Bafokeng Nation, an ethnic group whose laborers died working on the Massive Gap — a nod to mining’s exploitative historical past in South Africa.
‘You see what you see and you retain going’
That night, I polished off salmon for dinner and we made our solution to the lounge automobile for an evening cap. A saxophonist performed cowl tunes and the blue carpet was a dance flooring. The festive vibe was indicative of the South Africa I’ve come to know: a spot of pleasure and creativity.
As we rumbled by way of communities south of Johannesburg the next day, within the ultimate hours of the journey, I thought of how the temper from the evening earlier than performed towards what I noticed out the window: dilapidated factories enveloped in bushes and weeds. This space, as soon as a producing hub, was now a tragic marker of the nation’s industrial and financial decline.
“It’s two worlds,” a French vacationer who was visiting for the primary time informed me, explaining that what she’d skilled within the nation was not like something she had encountered as a humanitarian employee in West Africa.
She was speaking concerning the excessive poverty and excessive wealth that reside side-by-side in present-day South Africa, however she may need mentioned the identical factor to Lelyveld had she been on the prepare with him 4 many years in the past.
From the comfy confines of the Blue Prepare, I noticed a South Africa that was much like the one which Lelyveld noticed: the breathtaking magnificence, the rank poverty, the racial segregation. However a prepare, like a cruise ship, has its limitations. You see what you see and you retain going.
I’ve had the good thing about exploring the nation at a extra measured tempo. I’ve met Black entrepreneurs thriving in disinvested townships. I’ve been to swanky eating places the place the diners are Black and white they usually’re all dressed to the nines and swirling their wine with the identical degree of pretension. I’ve seen the methods by which South Africa, although removed from excellent, is a really totally different place than the one which Lelyveld explored.
And so once we arrived in Pretoria, I hopped off, appreciating that this journey had allowed me to see the nation in a approach that few others have, however realizing it solely informed a part of South Africa’s story.
