October 24, 2014, Friday.  Traveling south through S. Africa overnight, we woke this morning to an entirely different world--urban, green, and cool. We passed through Johannesburg on our way to Pretoria, noting everything from a 12 lane expressway to nice modern housing, a crowded shantytown to an enormous and elaborate mall/hotel complex. No more painfully sere landscapes, no more gleeful children dashing toward the tracks to watch us pass them by. 

Johannesburg is a typically urban jumble with all the usual extremes of poverty and prosperity and everything between. It could almost be anywhere, at least from the train. Pretoria Is smaller and seems neater somehow. It is the governmental capitol of the country, more or less, where Jo-burg is the economic capital. Pretoria is also the headquarters of Rovos Rail, so we arrived in their very own station, to be greeted by Rohan Vos, the president and founder of Rovos Rail. 

We were taken on a bus tour of the city to admire the famous jacaranda trees that line many streets. Surprisingly, the city government has banned all future planting of these lovely trees because they are not native to Africa. Eventually, they will be gone, but today, they were in full bloom and made the city very beautiful. We were taken to the imposing Voortrekker Museum where we spent an hour studying this monument to the early Dutch pioneers who settled and eventually tamed this region. The museum opened in 1949. Decades later, in 1994, when the old white government fell and Nelson Mandela was elected the first black president of South Africa, there was talk of tearing down this monument to Dutch (Afrikaner) control, Mandela insisted that it remain, as part of his wise reconciliation policy. It is a very strong, symbolic building, beautiful, and forceful, although probably not in the way the builders intended. Today, it makes us recall not just the history of that time and place, but also the sorrows of the apartheid period the Afrikaner government inflicted on the black people of South Africa.

Pretoria--and its famous jacaranda trees in full bloom!

After arriving in Pretoria at the Rovos Station, John chats up Rohan Vos.

The lobby of the station

This may be my favorite sign anywhere, ever.

First glimpse of the massive Voortrekker Museum

Pretoria from the museum

This frieze depicts the history of the Dutch settlers

Some of the yarns that went into the equally enormous tapestry depicting the same history

Back on the bus, we drove through the most prosperous part of the city, home to government officials and embassies, and ended at the Union Buildings, a huge, classically designed symmetrical complex that symbolizes the eventual balance of the formerly divided Dutch and English citizens of South Africa and still houses most of the government that resides here. I suppose today, that balance might be described as between South Africa’s black and white people. All of SA's presidents have statues here, but dominating all of them is an enormous bronze depicting Nelson Mandela with his arms raised to symbolically embrace the entire, diverse nation. 

I had to take a picture of this. The thing that looks like a golf club is actually
a wand to hold your phone so you can take better selfies!

We returned to the Rovos station where lunch and wine awaited us, followed by a very interesting tour led by Mr Vos himself. He told us about how he has spent years buying old rail cars and engines, most being sold as scrap and in truly dreadful condition, then gutting and refitting them to the designs he has established for his railroad. It is a large operation, and they are currently over halfway through putting together a fifth train. They already provide luxury service on all the routes worth seeing in Africa, but the trains sell out, so they have steadily increased their frequency. His business is a perfect example of a person who has worked at the thing he loves best and made such a success of it that his hobby has become his livelihood.