A Train - And An Adventure

The most fascinating adventures are not fit to print. Suffice it to say that many of mine* started on trains. And so it is that I often hanker after a train when there is none to be found. When the Gautrain, South Africa's first mass rapid transit system, was recently declared open, the promising implications for the country, commuters and economy were overshadowed by my admittedly selfish, unbridled glee. When I finally made it to the Gautrain this weekend, the experience did not disappoint. 

Sharing Gautrain photos

I bumbled curiously into the station, and was immediately seduced. The Gautrain system has managed to dispel that most ominous of spectres that so easily haunts a nation like this one: hopelessness. Hope, pride and promise oozes from every gleaming inch of the station, the trains and convenient connecting buses. Patriotism is not my strong suit, but when my train swooshed, gleaming gold, up to the platform there was a lump in my throat. The excitement of the weekend crowd, most of them also first-timers, was disarming, and I couldn't help but join the chatter as countless families immortalised their historic first Gautrain ride on camera. 

Emerging from the Rosebank station

Predictably, there was a mass exodus at Sandton, notorious for luxurious shopping. A small crowd remained for the last stop (at least until construction is complete): Rosebank. The soundtrack to all this poured down into the station: The Soweto Marimba Youth League, seen in the video below. Emerging from the long, steep stairwell, the familiar skyline and stingy spring sunshine of Johannesburg confirmed the surreal impossibility: this truly was a different city. Not just any city, but the one where I was born and raised. A city evolved.

The Soweto Marimba Youth League (www.smyle.co.za). Click to play video clip. * Not just the one involving a multingual Indo-Argentinian Tantra master in Pondicherry who needed a traveling companion to watch his backpack, which happened to be crammed with a few million rupees.  Images: All images in this post by mtcleroux. View the full Rosebank album in Picasa Web Albums.