Africa & India 2006: 2 - Southern Cross train Johannesburg to Swaziland

Wednesday, February 1, 2006

Once we had found all the nooks and crannies in our cabin and distributed our belongings we were able to squirrel away our carry on suitcases under the bed. Even our various backpacks and a wheeled bag each seemed to take up a lot of space. When they disappeared things were much more comfortable.

The coaches are designed with a raised centre section down the middle about a foot high, instead of the smooth, curved top that most train cars have. This allows for four ventilation windows opening to the outside in each compartment. It also gives each compartment good volume - the ceiling is almost ten feet high in the centre of the room.

Even though only a few passengers had arrived, there were three choices of trips for the day - each for a price. This is not an official tour day - we had opted to pay for an extra night before the tour began. The choices were a touristy recreation of an African village, a visit to the oldest mine - now a museum and amusement park called Gold Reef City, and being dropped off at "the largest shopping centre south of the pyramids". Most of us opted for the latter, as departure time was 11:30 AM and it seemed the best option for lunch. Food service on the train would not begin until dinner, and in any case would not include lunch at any time.

The mall, called Sandton City, was indeed huge. We were dropped at the entrance to Mandela Square, which is dominated by a giant statue of South Africa's first black president. Many good restaurants surrounded it, so our first move was to enjoy a tasty lunch. We then wandered the maze of passages that made up the mall, stopping to buy essentials such as sandals for me, water and a scarf for Marilynn. Our pickup to return to the train was right on time at 3:30, giving us time to lay down before the briefing at 5 PM. We were also on time in spite of having to ask directions three times to find our way out of the mall!

We were pleased to see John & Lee Campbell had arrived from Canada. They are friends of Marilynn from her late teens and early 20s when she was a teacher in Revelstoke, B.C. We have visited frequently over the years, and travelled together to Machu Pichu, Peru and down the length of the Amazon River.

The briefing was very thorough, and was made all the more pleasant by being held in the bar, allowing for a beer in hand throughout. Many points were clarified, and the importance of the anti-malarial medicines was stressed. This is the height of the malarial season, and we will be travelling through some of the most affected areas. Already over a thousand cases are being treated, and hundreds of these people will die from it.

The name of the train company, Shongololo, means "centipede" in the Zulu language. When they saw the first trains in the distance, that is what they thought of, so the name stuck. The logistics of this trip are formidable. There is nothing so straightforward as having an engine and crew. The local railway company in South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique and Zimbabwe must each provide an engine and crew. These sometimes show up when promised, and sometimes not. In Zimbabwe they have been known to show up without enough diesel to complete the trip! We were fully advised of the possibility of delays as engines are changed.

The last two cars on the train are flat decks on which our exploration vehicles, Mercedes mini-buses, are carried. They are ingeniously designed to allow them to be unloaded onto the tracks astern, or onto platforms on either side of the train.

Our first meal, salad followed by an appetizer of delicious mushroom caps and highlighted by roast lamb with potatoes and vegetables gave great hope for meals to come! It was topped off by apple crumble and custard - there were no complaints! A bottle of red and a bottle of white wine went down well with the meal, after which we had a short talk in the lounge car and everyone headed for bed. John & Lee had overnighted in London on the way here, but their time change was 10 hours compared to our 8, so everyone was ready to call it a night.

Thursday, February 2, 2006

Today is officially day one of the trip. It was interesting to check the clock as I was typing this in my bunk at 5:45 AM. The Costa Rica time on the computer shows 9:45 PM. In Costa Rica they are headed for bed while we are just getting up! The choice of included tours for today was of Soweto and Johannesburg, or Soweto and Pretoria - our group were united on Pretoria.

Just before we left we had word that Roger & Sally Nelson and Simon & Brenda Gray had at last arrived from England. We have travelled with both couples before, plus visiting back and forth. They had been bounced from their flight from England to Amsterdam when a smaller plane was substituted, causing them to miss their connection. They were to have arrived at around 8 PM last night, but finally made it at 7:30 AM this morning on a flight from Paris, France. Our driver made arrangements to meet the van that picked them up at a highway rest stop on the way to Pretoria.

It was good to see them, and although they had been on the go since 4 AM the previous morning they were game to join the tour. In Pretoria we visited the Voortrekker Monument and the Union Buildings, the very impressive parliament buildings of South Africa, which are surrounded by well-kept flower gardens. We also drove through the main part of town.

Lunch was a gala affair, giving us time to down some beer and catch up on each other's stories. After lunch it was off to Soweto (South Western Townships). Our guide, Don, said that you could not have gone into Soweto as a white person ten years ago - the car would have been stoned or worse, but now, as a result of welcoming tourism, bed and breakfast places are becoming common, as are handicraft shops and stalls.

We had a chance to meet some young people at an organization called SOHOMO, which stands for Soweto Hope Mountain. They are instilling local pride in the community, and teaching unemployed local people how to turn plastic and other garbage into art works to sell. We also visited the Hector Petersen Memorial, which is an apartheid museum named after a 12 year old who was one of the first students killed in the 1976 uprising against the apartheid government.

Back at the train I decided to lie down for a few minutes, but the next thing I knew I was being wakened from a dead sleep at 8 PM for the last dinner sitting! In the meantime the rest of the group had managed to dispose of a quantity of wine, including a bottle that was in our cabin when we arrived, a kind donation from Deborah of Wild African Ventures Inc who had put together the train portion of the trip!

Dinner was good again, although there are no options here. Meals and their accompaniments are standard for all passengers - the only option whether to eat or not. Everyone was pretty tired so it was early to bed after dinner..

We were to have been connected to an engine from South Africa Railways at 8 PM, however it was on the stroke of midnight that a jolt indicated our engine had joined us. I sat up for an hour watching the industrial might of South Africa roll by - huge mills, factories and mines. During the night there were number of stops as we pulled over to allow surprisingly frequent freight trains to rush past us. As in Canada and the US, freight has the right of way. This made for a very on and off night for sleep.

South Africa was originally settled by the Dutch East India Company in 1652 as a refreshment post along the sea links to the east. The British occupied the cape and settled it in 1820, which caused the Dutch, called Boers, to migrate northward on their great treks, resulting in the first contacts and conflicts with the black population. The Boer republics of Orange Free State and the Transvaal were formed shortly afterwards.

Mass immigration of fortune hunters after the discovery of gold and diamonds eventually led to the three year Boer War, which ended in victory for the British and the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910. The country became a republic in 1961 outside of the British Commonwealth.

The population of South Africa is currently around 44,345,000, of which 3 million live in Johannesburg and another 2,000,000 live in the 100 square kilometres of Soweto. The life expectancy in South Africa is only 43 years, a figure affected by AIDS. In 2003 an extensive survey was done in Africa that determined 5.3 million South Africans had aids, and that 370,000 had died from the disease in South Africa. Eleven official languages complicate administration and schooling. The population is 79% black, 9.6% white and 8.9% mixed. 86.4% of the population over 16 years old can read and write.

Friday, February 3, 2006

Most of us had an on and off sleep. The train stopped at a siding that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere and unloaded the vehicles. We were all hustled aboard, as no time had been made up during the night - the engine was four hours late connecting to the train, and we were now four hours behind schedule, so what had been decided was to do more driving than had been planned. In this way we would pick up a couple of hours.

The road was excellent, with 120 km per hour speed limit. En route we drove through the South African City of Nelspruit, a beautiful city of 1.5 million people set in green farmland.

To make it to the Swaziland border took about an hour and a half. Procedures at the tiny border station at Jeppe's Reef were straight forward, although we backed the one person stamping passports up somewhat by all arriving at once. While waiting for everyone to be processed I had a discussion with one of the border guards. He had just been stationed there from Johannesburg and loved the area. He had been attending functions held by the local tribe, whose customs were very different from what he was used to. His main concern was for his children, as while schools in South Africa are taught in English, the second language is that of the majority tribe of the area, and his children would not understand the local language.

Due to the shortage of time there were no stops for photos, however there was time to stop at a glass factory and a candle factory, where I suspect Shongololo receive commissions on sales. We also stopped at a roadside market where people were desperate to sell something, and a monument to the last king. In reality there was nothing that could not have been missed. Fortunately, traffic was light on the excellent winding two lane roads.

Swaziland is a very pretty, landlocked country. Its 17,363 sq. km. are largely made up of rolling hills and rich farmland. The highveld has a lot of tree farms (reforested areas) made up of pine or eucalyptus trees. The middleveld is where most farms are located, producing a variety of crops including fruit and vegetables. The lowveld has the forested nature reserves, and where all the "big five" of African animals live. There are also sugar cane and cotton farms in this climate zone.

It is a quite prosperous absolute monarchy, but its current young king, Mswati III, is under great pressure for his extravagances. He bought himself a $45 million jet aircraft, and threw a party costing the country over a million dollars. Tradition requires him to take an additional wife each year, but a couple of years ago he picked an 18 year old whose parents didn't approve. After a court case he had to let her go.

We stopped at a nice country restaurant for lunch and a couple of beer. It was very welcome, as it was well after 2 PM when we arrived.

There are 1,174,000 people living in Swaziland. The 2003 survey identified 220,000 of them as having AIDS, 17,000 had already died. The population is 97% black African and 3% white. The literacy rate is quite high - 81.6%. The capital, Mbabane, has a population of 50,000. It was the British administration headquarters from 1902 until independence. Because of the negotiating skills of former kings the kingdom avoided the wars that plagued the area around it. The stability of its government, and policies to encourage outside investment resulted in the establishment of a number of foreign owned manufacturing plants. There are good hotels, and we saw beautifully laid out golf courses.

After driving through Mbabane it was another hour and a half of driving to get back to the train, which headed for Mozambique as soon as all passengers and vehicles were aboard. I tried out the shower in our room. It was great, but it gave a funny feeling watching the track zipping by through the drain hole between my feet! The toilets have holding tanks, so using them while in the station is permitted!