You are not in Kansas anymore Toto.
Summer comes to and end in England and starts to rise in South Africa so we head south, that and so I can attend BrainShare South Africa. I have always wanted to spend a night sleeping on a train, since moving to England, that desire has been solidified into riding on the Blue Train. I have been told, mostly by advertisement from the operators that "The Blue Train is the most pre-eminent travelling experiences." We plan the trip for almost a year. Cheryl's Mom flies into watch Katie and Matthew which means that she will be away from home for almost a full month, sometime before the trip and sometime after. We get picked up around 18:00 from the house on Monday, then it is off to Heathrow to catch the red eye into Johannesburg where we will change planes to Port Elizabeth. It is a 10-hour flight but just one hour different as far as time zones go so we sleep, or I sleep and Cheryl naps. We are met by one of my managers and have the second breakfast of the day in the Johannesburg airport because we have a 5-hour lay over. We catch our flight to Port Elizabeth, collect our bags for the second of what will be many times this trip and head out to get a taxi. I have a very nicely prepared itinerary that I thought that I had read but I must not have because I say to the driver. "Take us to the Pretoria Main Railway Station." He gives me a puzzled look and asks to see the paper. I hand it to him and then he asks. "Do you want to go to the train station?" You see we are in Port Elizabeth and I have asked him to drive me to the Pretoria Station. That is like landing in Atlanta and asking the taxi to take you to the Dallas train station. I tell him that we are supposed to catch the Blue Train, something that I have wanted to do for most of my life. He gives me his best, "I feel sad for you face and says hop in." 

VIP Lounge
I look over the itinerary again, this time a bit closer. It tells me to pick up the tickets at the Cape Town VIP lounge, which doesn't make be feel much better since Cape Town is where we are suppose to depart the train. It has a beautiful description of the trip but the cities are on the other side of the country. So it is like landing in Atlanta being told to go to the Dallas train station, where you will travel in luxury seeing New York and Boston on your way to Los Angeles, and your tickets will be waiting for you in the VIP lounge in Chicago. Cheryl is pretty much unfazed by this as I tell her, "Don't worry we will straighten it out in the Blue Train VIP lounge." Just about the time I finish saying "VIP lounge" the driver turns to us and says. "Don't leave the train station this is the worst part of Port Elizabeth. If you need to go anywhere call a taxi. Don't under any circumstance step out of the station." He then turns to us and says "Let me walk you in I would feel terrible if something happened to you before I got you into the station." I think he might be pulling my leg but looking around I get the impression he might have been soft selling it because this is his city. We get into the station and no VIP lounge, no lounge of any kind, no window, no sign, and even the restrooms are padlocked shut so people won't steal the porcelain off the sinks. The taxi driver talks in Afrikaans to a guy locked in a room marked "Security". I think he said, "These poor dumb bastards think that they are going to wait in the VIP lounge, as you can see they have computer equipment, expensive looking luggage and I think the moron is wearing a Rolex. Can you lock up their bags and I will drive them somewhere safer just so you will not have to fill out a murder report and clean their blood off the platform?" He then looks at us and says in English, this nice gentleman will lock up your bags. Have you thought about having lunch anywhere else in the city besides here? We have been travelling for about 16 hours so far and have already eaten two breakfasts so lunch was not a high priority for us, but anywhere else sounded like a very good idea. 

Tour of Port Elisabeth
He took us to a very nice restaurant on the other side of town. We had five hours to kill, lunch was a long affair but you can not stretch it to five hours. Cheryl pulls out the travel book and we look for sights to see in Port Elizabeth. We show them to our waitress that seems to be wearing only a red slip so I have a hard time keeping eye contact, I think maybe it was teal, now that I think about it. Any ways, she tells us we can walk down the street to the centre of town, but that we should not stop for anything and don't turn left, or right or go too far straight because it is not safe. We record her instructions, like we are planning an invasion and just as we are about to head off she comes back and says the owner doesn't think it is a good idea for us to walk, she will call a taxi. I am not sure if this is good business because it is bad business to have foreign tourist killed after eating at your establishment or if the taxi driver and her are in cahoots. Either way I don't mind being dumb, I just hate being stupid while doing it so I decide to have the girl in her slip call us a taxi. It turns out to be our old friend from the airport. We have been in town two hours and in his cab three times. We tell him where we want to go and he gives us the same puzzled look as when we said Pretoria the first time. He says, "You're here." We try and explain that the owner wanted us to take a taxi the two blocks to the first site we wanted to check out. The puzzled look does not leave his face. I hand him 600 South African Rand which is about 60 quid and tell him to show us Port Elisabeth. The trip from the airport to the train station cost me 30 Rand the trip from the train station to the restaurant cost me 10 Rand, I am guessing that 600 Rand is dumb, but not stupid. We get a very nice tour of Port Elisabeth. Along with colourful commentary about Apartheid, British tourist, Communism, foreign trade, iron ore, deforestation, and why the computer business must be a wonderful career if you can pay 600 Rand for a 200 Rand fare and spend half a day riding around shooting the shit with a cab driver in South Africa. I agreed.

Finally there is a VIP Lounge
We have been told three different times to arrive back at the station and had another time listed on the itinerary. I decide risking death is better than missing the train or at least finding out that there really is no train while it is still light enough to escape the train station. We arrive back at 16:00 the earliest time we where told the train would arrive, it is not there. We wait at 16:30 the next time we where told the train should arrive. We continued to wait. At five O'clock, which we where told was the time that everyone was going to be standing on the platform waiting in line to board the train. Five came and went and we continued to wait, alone. At five fifteen I thought I heard a train whistle and train pull into the station, but I didn't see a train. Ten minutes later the security guy came and asked me to come and collect my bags. I could not understand why but assumed it was quitting time, so I collected my bags. As we dragged them back out on to the platform a very nicely dressed gentleman was putting out a cardboard card table. This I was to discover was the Blue Train's VIP lounge. The security guy dropped the bag he was carrying in front of the cardboard lounge and wished us a nice journey as he hightailed it to his car and left before the sun set on the station. 

Blue Train
The trip took a dramatic turn for the better. The well-dressed gentleman knew our names and asked if could I please put down my backpack since it was unseemly to have a guest carry a bag onto the train. He told us that his porters would fetch our bags while the hostess shows us to our compartment and provided us with some champagne. I was dressed in jeans and a Novell shirt that had a breakfast stain on it from one of the many that I had consumed over the past 29 hours. The Blue Train had pulled into the station at 17:15 but came in so far away from the other common trains that it was hidden from view. We rounded the corner and saw an immaculate blue train. It had 18 cars and two engines. The hostess left us in the room to get our water and orange juice, we passed on the champagne which seemed to depress her, but she left cheerily to ensure our every desire was fulfilled. I wasn't sure if the water would work while the train was in the station but since I wasn't kidding about the restrooms being padlocked shut, I decided to give it a shot come hell or high water. Everything worked, except now the entire train staff made appointments to greet us. The porter, conductor, train master, waiter, bartender, and of course our butler. I was standing in the same clothes I had been wearing for the last two days meeting servants dressed in tuxedos and had just found out that the water does work inside the station. I had a working shower for my own personal use just five feet from me and know I had to be greeted like royalty for the next hour. After the train master left I put out the do not disturb sign and took a shower. I stepped back into our compartment fresh from the shower of course still in appropriate shower attire only to discover that I could not work the blinds and people love to stand and wave at trains as the ride by. I quickly drop down into a chair and rummage around for some clothes. Cheryl explains that jackets and ties are required for dinner, mine looks like it has been packed still wet from the washer and rung dry by angry baboons. I put on my slacks and clean Novell shirt, pull the do not disturb sign from the door and call the butler. 

Posh 
He arrives and asks our forgiveness that he hasn't greeted us yet, but did not want to disturb us. I ask him right away, "How do you work the blinds?" He looks as if I called him a dirty name and replies, "Sir, of course you can't work the blinds. I need go over that with you, it is part of my duties to see that you understand all of the subtleties of the train. To work the blinds you push this button marked blinds on the remote control…" He then ends with, "Would you like me to press you suit for dinner?" I tell him to please press my shirt and trousers. He seemed depressed but left cheerily to ensure our every desire was fulfilled. While I am waiting for my butler to return with my freshly pressed outfit, the Conductor arrives and explains that there are only six people on board. 15 cars which hold four compartments plus a butler's compartment each, a baggage car, power car, and laundry car and the entire passenger list consist of three couples. He tells us since we have the extra space why don't we have our luggage put into the compartment next to ours and why don't we sleep in one of the nicer compartments and use this one as a sitting room during the day.

Sleeping on a Train
We had a very nice dinner looking out over the African plains, no lions or anything, but it was still very pretty. The waitress told us to try as many South African wines as we liked, that she didn't mind opening three or four bottles, we of course didn't need to finish any of the bottles or even have a second glass from one that we didn't find to our liking. She did tell us if we wanted to finish all of the bottles that they kept a wheelchair on board and they would discreetly roll us back to our compartment. We finished dinner and then went to the lounge car in the very back of the train. It has huge picture windows so you can look out the back of the train, it was getting dark so they acted more like mirrors then windows. I had a final glass of port, as you do, then we headed off to our sleeping compartment. I don't know how many of you have ever slept on a train. I would spend the next two nights on this one and can still say I haven't really slept on a train.. I thought the "clicky, clack" of the train rolling over the rails would put me to sleep but the rails are continuous so no "clicky clack." It is kind of like laying in a big comfortable bed and every so often having someone bump it sideways or backwards a couple of feet. I had every motion dream known to man. I dreamed I was back in tank rolling along on a night exercise, on a train that kept jumping the tracks and then powering back onto them. I really did sleep but I would have slept better if I were in the back of a tank during a live fire exercise. 

Wildlife
We woke to silence. The train had pulled in to the station in the early hours of the morning. We dressed and then headed off to breakfast. The train would spend most of the day at this station while we disembarked to see some of the sights. We took a tour of the surrounding countryside, then to a commercial cavern for a tour. We then went to an ostrich farm and learned everything we ever wanted to know about ostriches. Cher almost got up the courage to ride on the back of one, it never even crossed my mind. We had lunch at a very nice local restaurant and of course we order ostrich, which I thought, was a bit uncaring since we had just learned so much about them, but they are tasty. We ended the day in town at a game park and crocodile ranch. They had a couple of American alligators just to show what wimps they where when put next to an African crocodile. We saw them feed a donkey carcass to a pack of loins and then Cheryl got to pet a cheetah. It was very brave of her, it never even crossed my mind. 

Windows turn into mirrors when lit from the inside.
The train pulled out around suppertime. We watched the landscape roll by as we headed up the mountains on the way to Cape Town. The train had some trouble with its breaks so during dinner we got to watch the engineers check out each of the cars to see why the breaks would keep coming on, we ordered more wine. We tried to stay up a bit later the last night than the first night. We where in bed by 9:30pm the first night but didn't make it much past 10:30pm the second. Cheryl is a cheap drunk and I was just sleepy. Same movement, same dreams. 

Last Day.
The last day was really half a day on the train, off to breakfast, pack up and then sit around the observation car and watch South Africa roll passed the windows. It is funny how many people like to wave to trains, old, young, mothers and their children, it doesn't matter, most people will wave at you if you are sitting in a train. Some of the kids shot Cheryl a sign we took to be sort of the South African "hang-ten" sign. We asked the bartender what it meant and he said it was the symbol for a gun and it meant they would like to shoot us. He told us this as if he was telling us that it was going to be a nice day today. We are still not sure we didn't translate it wrong, but we did pass by a lot of townships made out of scrap lumber and corrugated steel roofing. No plumbing, no electricity, dirt floors, I suppose having a couple of people riding past their lives looking from the back of a very expensive train while they sipped champagne might get you to wave a different gesture. 

We got off in Cape Town probably the prettiest city in South Africa, but this story is too long already so I will end it here.