africa

June 9, 2011

Visiting Victoria Falls Station, Zimbabwe

Ah, Zimbabwe. What exactly can I say about you? You have beautiful landscapes and interesting people, but your president-for-life (not officially, there are “elections”) has run your economy into the shitter… Case-in-point: I am now a trillionaire. Mind you, I was told if you wanted a loaf of bread (back when the Zimbabwean currency was actually used – the country now uses either the US Dollar or South African Rand for transactions), you’d need to wait in line at the grocery at 4AM, and of course have that one trillion bill in hand. Despite how poor some of these people...

Riding South Africa’s Premier Classe Train, Part 2

In my previous post, I gave a little bit of preliminary information about the Premier Classe train journey that I took in South Africa. Before I continue, perhaps I should share with you a few facts about the infrastructure of the rails in South Africa – things I wasn’t aware of when I made my journey. • The Passenger Rail Association of South Africa (PRASA) operates both the Metrorail (commuter rail in urban areas) and Shosholoza Meyl (regional and long distance trains). The Premier Classe falls under the Shosholoza Meyl. • 40% of PRASA’s fleet of trains are more than...

Riding South Africa’s Premier Classe Train, Part 1

Back in the days of Imperialism, where Africa was carved up and occupied by various European nations, there was a man by the name of Cecil Rhodes that had a dream. And it wasn’t exactly tricking the world into thinking diamonds are incredibly rare (though as the founder of the diamond company DeBeers – he had a significant role in that), it was the dream of a railway stretching across Africa. Rhodes’ dream – the Cape to Cairo Railway – was never realized. Though portions of it were built, the British colonies never achieved a direct line from Egypt down...