Your Trip Mapped Out South Africa

By StanleySobari

#A platform in a Cape Town station is the first step to discovering the riches that lie in the heart of South Africa-from a once-in-a-lifetime train ride, to wildlife safaris, historic battlefields, inspiring mountain treks and blissful isolation on the coast.

The Blue Train-Best for rail journeys : Ride the rails from Cape Town to Pretoria on a train inspired by 1920s glamour, as the mountains of the Cape and the expenses of the Karoo pass by.

Kruger National Park-Best for wildlife : One of the most important wildlife reserves in Africa, the Kruger has the Big Five game animals of safari legend and countless more species besides

Isandlwana &  Rorke’s Drift-Best for Battlefields : The rolling heartland of the Zulu people is dotted with battle sites whose names loom large in the colonial history of the nation.

Drakensberg-Best for hiking : The rooftop of South Africa catches the clouds and sends swift rivers rushing through dramatic gorges that make for prime walking country.

Wild Coast-Best for seclusion :  The surf breaks along a coast that’s far from urban centres, where local life continues largely unchanged among the rondavels (thatched huts).

KRUGER NATIONAL PARK

By StanleySobari

# There are thought to be more than 12,000 elephants in the Kruger National Park.

BEST FOR WILDLIFE ‘Now for me, this is the true privilege of my job.’ Lazarus Mkhonto has parked in the sunset-gilded sands of a dried river bed, but his eyes aren’t on the scenery, nor the refreshments laid artfully across the Land Cruiser’s bonnet, nor even the many representatives of a safari-spotter’s wish list ambling past on all sides: the crazy-paved giraffes nibbling at the tree tops; a multi generational herd of unhurried elephants; two gimlet-eyed rhinos with their ancient flanks tide-marked in basking mud.

Instead, Lazarus is transfixed by a modest, russet-coloured ruminant on the far bank, nervously browsing green shoots thrown up after the first rains of summer. ‘We have more than a million impala here in Kruger National Park,’ he says-a typically healthy population in this bushveld the size of Belgium, home to almost 800 species of reptile, bird and mammal. ‘Most people spot one or two and then stop noticing they’re even there. No-one comes here to see them. Maybe that’s why I’m such a fan. Yesterday I watched one for two hours.’

Passion, Lazarus asserts, is what makes a good ranger. ‘We have people who come here with diplomas and degrees,’ he says, pulling down the brim of his bush hat as the sun goes out in a scarlet blaze of glory, ‘but if they don’t fall in love with this place, they don’t last long.’

Lazarus was raised just outside the park, and began working as a tracker at 14. ‘But I’m still reprised every day.’ He says. ‘See that watering hole?’ he points at a muddy splodge a hundred yards off, as large as an inflatable paddling pool and ringed with coconut cobbles of elephant dung. ‘I went past this morning and could not believe what I found living in it.’ On cue, the improbable cohabitants reveal themselves in a thrashing of brown water: a full-grown crocodile and a monstrous hippo.

Vast yet often seemingly crowded, the Kruger can both overwhelm and disappoint. Visitors must stick to the roads, meaning their every encounter with nature’s raw majesty is diluted by the background presence of tarmac, tour buses and the whirr of cameras. Most visitors, anyway: the jock Safari Lodge, where Lazarus works as a ranger manager, offers an entirely more natural experience. The oldest of a handful of private lodges within the park, the Jock is set in 6,000 exclusive hectares. ‘We can go anywhere we like,’ says Lazarus, gesturing at the dusk-bound river bed, the tall jackalberry trees full of balloons shrieking against the dying of the light, the low, orange hills strewn with Flinstones stacks of bare boulders. ‘People come to Kruger for wildlife, but you know: this is really wild, man,’ He smiles hugely. ‘And it’s my office.’

Each of the 12 straw-roofed guest cottages has a private plunge pool. Barbecues and other meals are served on a panoramic deck (including all meals and two game drives; jocksafarilodge.com).

The Perfect Trip – South Africa

By StanleySobari

#The mighty Amphitheatre at the heart of the Drakensberg is  also rich with dinosaur foosils and prehistoric cave art.

Beyond Cape Town and the Garden Route, discover the north and east of this land of soaring mountains, unspoiled coasts and rich wildlife

The Blue Train

By StanleySobari

BEST FOR RAILWAYS JOURNEYS Rose gardens, pigeons and the vinegar whiff of fish and chips: the ambience that lingers in the avenues just beyond Cape Town station would have seemed familiar to a past generation of British-born colonials, reacclimatising en route to motherland. The forecourt itself, though, is a tribute to modern South Africa, log-jammed with taxi drivers and snack merchants loudly appealing to a new breed of commuter.

This clamour fades beyond the blue rope that cordons off a private platform, home to a quarter-mile of gleaming azure metal. The Blue Train is a luxury sleeper service that began life in the 1920s, and its current incarnation is a happy marriage of vintage opulence and contemporary comfort. Double-size compartments eliminate the yogic contortions demanded aboard a more typical sleeper train, and are furnished with geometric brocade and dark marquetry in homage to this mode of transport’s Agatha Christie heyday. Best of all, there’s a yawning, gold-tinted picture window showing this magnificent country slide by.

Table Mountain is left behind swirled in its mist, slipshod suburbs give way to flamingo-dotted lakes and then it’s out into a rolling enormity of vineyards and orchards.

Amongst the waistcoat ted butlers in the lounge car is Frits van Helden, who at 56 has been swaying down the Blue Train’s thickly carpeted corridors for 39 years. ‘Everyone who worked on the railways wanted a job on this train,’ he says. ‘We were all hand picked.’ The trains have evolved since then – ‘we ran steam locos well into the ‘80s, and our best suite took up half a carriage’ – but the view is ageless. ‘It’s a thousand miles to Pretoria,’ says Frits, looking out at the Hex Valley’s snow-dappled crags,’ and I know every one of them like an old friend.’

Lunch, dispatched amid a festival of linen and crystal, is parsley-crusted rack of lamb with many toothsome courses either side of it. Between the dessert wine and the cheese board the train is swallowed by a long series of tunnels; the last opens into the Karoo, a coppered scrubland that covers a third of South Africa and most of the voyage.

The Blue Train pitches itself as ‘a window to the soul of Africa’, a maxim that isn’t confined to the scenery. If Dutch-born Frits is the oldest hand aboard, then Takunda Mposhi is the youngest – a 24-year-old in his third month of service. ‘Our country has seen great changes in my lifetime,’ He says performing the deft mechanical original that converts a compartment’s armchairs into a wonderfully plump bed. ‘On this train, people from every background and of every colour work together and play together. When we get back to Cape Town we will all go down to the beach.’

Suites are butler-serviced and include digital entertainment systems and marble-fitted en suite bathrooms with baths. The dining car specializes in native produce such as Karoo lamb and Knysna oysters (including all meals and drinks; bluetrain.co.za).

EIFEL TOWER

By StanleySobari

#If all the iron in the Eiffel Tower, seen here from the Palais de Chaillot, were melted down into the shape of its base. It would fill the square to only 6cm deep

THE WORLD IS FILLED WITH building and monuments named after monarchs, generals and businessmen, but it’s rare to find great landmarks that credit the architects or engineers who actually built them. The giant tower that greeted visitors to the Paris Universal Exposition of 1889 was planned to be merely a temporary construction. Perhaps that’s why it was   excused from bearing the name of some national symbol or lofty ideal, and instead commemorates the genius of Gustave Eiffel.

To appreciate the impact of the Eiffel Tower on a Parisian of 1889, consider the timeline of the record-breaking structures that came before. The Great Pyramid at Giza set an early standard, at over 140 metres tall. Much later, a few medieval cathedrals managed to edge past it. By 1888, the tallest thing made by man was the 169-metre Washington Monument a  giant stone obelisk. Impressive, but still something that a time-travelling ancient Egyptian would have instinctively understood. So for 4,400 years the ceiling of architectural achievement had been raised only modestly when Gustave Eiffel opened an entirely new chapter, with a tower more than 300 meters high, and made not out of stone like all its predecessors, but wrought iron.

‘Gustave Eiffel knew how to master the most advanced technology of the time,’ says Stephane Dieu, who looks after the tower’s heritage. ‘For a start, the foundations of the tower’s four pillars had to built in damp soil close to the river. Above all, it was his faith and love of science that guided him – you can see that from the frieze around the first floor, which gives the names of 72 French scientists.’

The commercial success of a 300-metre observation tower was only possible of course thanks to the invention of the elevator. Four sets of diagonal lifts climb the tower’s splayed feet to the mid-levels, through a lattice of girders that join in crosses and starbursts. The second journey is a vertical one, up the centre of the structure. As the cabin glides ever higher, the four edges of the tower close in around it. Just before it seems like the iron is about to run out, the lift stops, and opens its doors.

Solving technical challenges was only part of Eiffel’s work. When construction had hardly begun, some 50 of the leading French artists and  writers of the day signed a joint letter to the press, condemning this ‘black and gigantic factory chimney’, which would crush the great monuments of Paris under its ‘barbaric mass’. Eiffel wrote a lengthy rebuttal: ‘Why should something that is admirable in Egypt become hideous and ridiculous in Paris?’ he asked. Two years later, the tower received nearly two million visitors during the exhibition.

And yet Eiffel’s supreme achievement was meant to be dismantled by 1909. It was only saved on his insistence that it could serve as a testing ground for scientific experiments and later as a radio transmitter.

Bridges and buildings by Eiffel survive from Hungary to Bolivia. He even designed the internal framework for the Statue of Liberty. But if it hadn’t been for Eiffel’s determination, the tower that bears his name might be remembered today only from a few yellowing postcards.

If you know your travel dates two or three months in advance, it’s worth booking a timed ticket to skip long ticket office queues (toureiffel.fr). you’ll need to print it out or show it on a smartphone screen.