This 3100-km adventure is one of the world’s great rail journeys

At Lubumbashi’s Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral, incense mingles with the faithful’s rousing a cappella. Catholicism took root here during the Belgian colonial era; the city was founded as Elisabethville in 1910, when “people discovered there was plenty of copper in this area”, says local guide Michel Nyembo. The earth’s riches are laid out at the Malachite Market: copper bangles, malachite pendants. At the national museum, exhibits detail the region’s rich mining history. But not everyone can work in mining, Nyembo says. He gestures to bright-painted shops with hand-lettered names like Glory to Glory, The One, and Quincaillerie Nouveau Depart Avec Jesus (New Beginning with Jesus Hardware). They sell soap, beer and hardware supplies.

We’re behind schedule when the train halts near an open-pit copper and cobalt mine on the outskirts of Kolwezi. The drivers and their local pilots have inched across tracks that appear to be floating. The locomotive’s weight irons out the kinks, but the railroad is pitted with holes dug by opportunists hoping to find copper dust spilled from haulage trains in decades past.

So languorous is our progress, no one has noticed the diesel tanker dislodging from the tracks. An engineering headache, but opportune timing: the mine we’re due to visit is just up the road. Waiting buses ferry us to its lookout; the yawning pit is a counter-relief sculpture, its terraces stepping elegantly into the void. It’s framed by leafy hills and the blue strip of the Lualaba River.

The world is hungry for DRC’s resources, and mining companies are rapacious for its profits. But our mine guide is coy in the face of guests’ persistent questions: human rights abuses and environmental degradation have been documented in this region.

In a display of pomp, we’re accompanied on our tour of Kolwezi city by an armed military escort and a film crew from the provincial governor’s office. Convivial youths hustle us to the busts of Congolese leaders circling the pool at Rond-Point Malu. Even Belgium’s dastardly King Leopold II and Mobutu Sese Seko, a former president of the then Zaire, are memorialised with polished sculptures. The film crew asks to interview Jennifer and me: “What is your opinion of Congo?” they ask. “Are you enjoying your visit?” Visa woes notwithstanding, we’ve been met with warmth and hospitality, we reply; it’s a privilege to see this disparaged country from the inside out. We don’t tell them we’d been warned not to come.

Beyond Kolwezi, labourers are repairing a railway line alongside our own – evidence of the commitment by foreign and local governments to improve infrastructure. Garrulous children and standoffish adults pursue us as we slow down at Kasaji; from our perch in the observation car, we communicate with them in our incompatible languages. A man in a black beret and epaulettes addresses us in strident French. “He asks why we don’t get off the train and spend time in the community,” translates a French guest.

Despite our comments to the film crew, not everyone has welcomed this incursion: some have made offensive gestures, and a few youths and children hurled stones, despite the presence of Congolese security guards on this stretch. But it’s a fair question: to this man, we’re foreigners waving imperiously from the comfort of our sumptuous lodgings. I’m sorry we can’t disembark here, I say. We enjoyed our visits to Lubumbashi and Kolwezi, and hope to return one day. The man’s face softens, and he follows in a slow, communal procession behind the train.

The final stretch of DRC goes drowsily by and Angola comes into focus. The tempo shifts from languid to zippy: doubling its speed, the Pride of Africa makes up for lost time as it bullets across tracks sharp as blades. Traditional dancers greet us on the platform at Luau, terminus of the Benguela Railway. PPE-clad officials conduct Ebola health checks, and guides offer Angolan snacks of groundnuts, gingered coconut, dried banana dusted with chilli.

Once riddled with landmines and ravaged by civil war, the former Portuguese colony’s fortunes are rapidly changing. Since 1994, the HALO Trust has cleared more than 123,000 landmines. Investment in the Lobito Corridor promises economic advantages for regional communities; oil, gas and diamonds are widely exported, and tourism is growing apace.

“You’ve arrived in the best country!” says tour operator Elda Chilembo Haubner. “Yes, we went through a war, but it’s a very safe place, and tourism is thriving in Angola.”

Chilembo Haubner and her sister, Elizet Chilembo Kilombo, co-founders of Linken Tours, bring flair and joie de vivre to every stop. But while they’re clearly ready for Angola’s tourism renaissance, so few tourists make it this far east our arrival is newsworthy. The streets are cordoned off for our walking tour of Luau. The next day, at Luena, we’re trailed along tree-lined boulevards by journalists from Radio Nacional de Angola. The civil war officially came to an end in 2002, when UNITA and the ruling MPLA signed a peace deal: the Monumento da Paz (Peace Monument) soars heavenwards from a city park with two outstretched hands cradling a dove.

Wild mango trees are flowering, their flushed panicles echoing the streaked sky and dusty-pink station houses flashing by: Caifuche, Cachipoque, Camacupa, raps the train. The plains buckle and roll as we ascend Bie Plateau to Kuito; jaunty with bright art deco buildings, it’s the most elevated stop on our journey at 1720 metres. The strategic outpost was besieged during the civil war; 7000 of those who died were reburied at the hilltop Memorial Batalha do Kwitu.

“A lot of people were lost during the war,” says Chilembo Haubner. “These are some of the souls that they could catch hold of and bring into the cemetery.”

A man stands hand on hip in a field on the way to Huambo. On second glance, the figure is a scarecrow. But the women idling on a plot staked with survey pickets are real: dressed in protective equipment, they’re sweeping for landmines. While the railway has been thoroughly de-mined, some minefields remain nearby.

But Huambo, lined with trees and pastel-coloured buildings, hums with optimism. “Eu amo Huambo” (I love Huambo) proclaims the 3D lettering at the Garden of Culture. A monument to Agostinho Neto, Angola’s first president and the leader of the MPLA, arises from the city’s centre. UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi’s shelled manse, Casa Blanca, slumps on a street corner. The divisive figure was killed by the MPLA in 2002, “and the civil war came to a quite rapid end after that”, Schofield says.

The tracks glow copper as they twist between baobabs and sandstone monoliths at dawn on the final day of our journey. Palm trees fill this blanched tableau as we approach the coastal plains.

Clothing and sugarcane are laid out to dry between the tracks; the Angolan flag flaps above a mud-brick compound. It’s a poignant moment for the Portuguese guest whose mother was born in Lobito, and the Angolan-born German whose father is buried on the country’s seaboard.

Tick-tock, drums the train as the last of the station names flick by: Mina, Negrao, Catumbela, Santa Cruz. Our windows fill with apartment blocks, waving people, the heart of the city. The tempo subsides, the music fades out; 3100 kilometres later, we’ve reached the end of the line.

MORE The Classic Safari Company’s 14-night Copper Trail journey on Rovos Rail, costs from $25,900 twin-share. See classicsafaricompany.com.au

FLY Qantas flies from Sydney and Melbourne to Johannesburg, with connecting flights to Victoria Falls on Airlink. See qantas.com and flyairlink.com. Taag Angola Airlines flies from Lobito to Luanda, and onwards to Johannesburg. See flytaag.com

STAY Rooms from $1110 at The Victoria Falls Hotel and $400 at the Intercontinental Hotel Luanda. See classicsafaricompany.com.au

VISAS Australians don’t need visas for Zambia and Angola. eVisas should be obtained well ahead of time for Zimbabwe (evisa.gov.zw) and the DRC (evisa.gouv.cd).

HEALTH AND SAFETY While the Copper Trail traverses the country’s comparatively peaceful, Ebola-free south, the Australian government’s Smartraveller website continues to advise against travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo due to the volatile security situation and the threat of conflict, violent protests, terrorism and kidnapping. The DRC is also experiencing an Ebola public health emergency. A yellow fever vaccination is required for travel to the DRC. Check with your doctor for advice on antimalarials.

Beijing to Tashkent A vast section of the fabled Silk Road is traversed on Golden Eagle Luxury Trains’ 22-day Grand Silk Road journey. In the historic trading city of Kashgar, guests disembark for a flight to Almaty, where they board the next train for the onward journey. See goldeneagleluxurytrains.com

Paris to Istanbul Fall asleep in Paris and wake up in Budapest on the first leg of Belmond’s five-night journey aboard the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express. The route winds through France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria before easing into Istanbul. See belmond.com/en

Sydney to Perth Two oceans, three state capitals and myriad landscapes are stitched together on Journey Beyond’s three-night Indian Pacific voyage, a 4352-kilometre continental crossing via Adelaide. See journeybeyondrail.com.au

Vancouver to Toronto The Canadian Rockies gives way to forests, prairies and bright-lighted cities on this four-night journey aboard VIA Rail’s The Canadian. Travel upright or book a private sleeper berth; head to the glass-dome Skyline car for wrap-around views. See viarail.ca/en

Pretoria to Lilongwe This circuitous route twists for 3600 kilometres through South Africa, Eswatini, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi on Rovos Rail’s new, 16-night Malawi Meander. The trip includes stops at Kruger National Park and the Mozambican capital, Maputo. See rovos.com

The writer was a guest of The Classic Safari Company and Rovos Rail.