October 26, 2014, Sunday. Our last day on this train. We will arrive in Cape Town tonight and transfer to the Mount Nelson Hotel and a welcome night's sleep in a real bed. We hope it will also be quiet as last night this train was not. Meanwhile, we are traveling through the Karoo, a vast high plateau surrounded by low, rocky mountains. Hardly any trees, just scrub and the occasional windmill. We saw a few sheep,this morning, confirming that this is sheep ranching country. It reminds me of Australia's Nullarbor.

We made a stop around 8am to allow most of the passengers to disembark for a 5K or about 3 mile walk to Matjiesfontein, a reproduction World Heritage site. John's swollen feet and ankles made that walk impossible for him, so we stayed on board along with about a quarter of our fellow passengers. We did walk around the town, snapping pictures of the Victorian era buildings and enjoying the warm/cool fresh air. That made our heretofore perfectly nice train seem stuffy and stale, adding to my desire to leave it behind tonight. It's been a great trip, however, and I would recommend it to anyone. 

The museum devoted to transportation is a claim to fame here

After leaving this nice little town, we entered wine country and what looks like the bread basket of S. Africa. The climate here is so much more temperate and less harsh than in the previous countries that the difference is easy to see. We roll through countryside that is obviously productive, with huge vineyards and wheat fields, Not to mention roadside flowers such as we haven't seen until now. This is a beautiful, open country and easy to imagine as a homeland. With whites, mostly Dutch Afrikaners and English comprising only 10% of the population, I can't help wondering about the ownership of these productive farms.  We have been told that in some of the countries where the native African people seized control from white dominance, farming and commerce have both suffered as a result. There is always a period of transition needed with that kind of upheaval. I would like to think it will be short and that countries like Zimbabwe will move forward into both prosperity and less dictatorial and incompetent governments over time. 

Prosperous or not, every country we have visited in Africa has 

pockets of poverty to deal with.

 At 6:15 pm, we pulled into the Cape Town station and disembarked our luxury train, the first step in our return to reality. Once again, we were met by Rohan Vos, who thanked us all for riding his train and kept his people performing at top efficiency. Our bags appeared along with rides to our various hotels, and after some parting hugs, John and I were off to the Mount Nelson Hotel, a sprawling old grande dame of a hotel, frequented by royalty in the old days. I do love upscale old hotels! They have so much personality. Once again, our room is elegant, spacious, thoroughly modernized, and supremely comfortable. We checked in and were too tired to go out for dinner so settled for eating here even though only the Planet Bar was open. We were able to order two light vegan-friendly pub type items and a glass of wine apiece for a very moderate price, much to our surprise. After two weeks of way too much wine and food, we were very happy to return to moderation. Another happy surprise was the discovery that the Austrian couple and four of the Dutch couples are also staying here. It was great fun to see people entering the bar who now seem like old friends. 

October 25, 2014, Saturday. Today we are riding through open veldt on our way to Kimberley, home to South Africa's famous, or infamous, diamond mining industry. Acacia trees are everywhere along our route, but here they have not been ravaged by elephants as they were in the reserve, and they have also received a little more rain and so are a bit greener. They dot the open plain that is covered with pale dried grasses and smallish termite mounds, our only sight of the reddish earth beneath. I noticed that these mounds have very large entrance holes and began to wonder if they really were termite mounds at all because they don’t look quite like the ones I have seen elsewhere. Yes, they are, but here, three different animals also make homes in them: foxes, anteaters, and meerkats. No wonder they look so strange! 

Approaching Kimberley

We are told that soon we will see a large gathering of flamingoes, so half the train has flocked to the observation car, the better to see this phenomenon. I am here too, although only because our room is being made up. I hope to be back in the room soon as, unlike most passengers, I don't especially like the observation car.  

LATER: Just outside of Kimberley, there is a dam and a large lake where hundreds of pale pink flamingoes congregate. It is quite a sight!

We stopped in Kimberley for today's excursion, a visit to the Big Hole. Owned by the DeBeers diamond Corporation, this was the biggest diamond mine in the world, although it is now a tourist attraction and not an active mine. The mine closed during World War II, and when DeBeers returned, all the shafts and tunnels in the lower portion had flooded. DeBeers determine that it would be unprofitable to try to restore and mine it, so now it sits. All is not lost, however. In the old days, they tossed aside off-color diamonds which are now seen as valuable, so today, the detritus of the early years is being sifted and yields many very valuable stones. 

We were taken to a very well done twenty minute movie giving us a good history of the mine. Then we walked out to a platform from which we could see the now water filled “big hole.” Down into the pit for a replica of the old mining operation but without the constant din of explosives and machinery, without the dust that reduced visibility to near zero, and with air conditioning, something the mostly black miners never enjoyed while they toiled 12 hours a day for a tiny pittance, Terrible life once deep shaft mining replaced the open surface mining of the very early days. Next we were rushed through a possibly pretty informative museum and then on to our 90 minute shopping opportunity. Mercifully, this is the only one of these we have had on this trip!  

We rested near the shops for a bit until John remembered there was a reproduction of old Kimberley outside the main building. We wandered around there for a bit, enjoying a glimpse of raucous frontier life reminiscent of the American old west. 

In the modern town of Kimberley, we are reminded this is the heart of Afrikaner country. Signs are in Dutch with English below. The vibe here is different somehow--more grit, more pioneer spirit, closer to the bone of survival.  

Then and now--there is always a pub in a mining town!

now

This is the original DeBeers brothers farmhouse. It seems primitive, but along with the rest of the town, it shows us that the Europeans here lived pretty well for the times.

The African workers didn't fare so well