Another early Saturday in Cape Town. It’s hard to wake-up every day of the week knowing that there is only a slight chance that you’ll get to sleep in on Sunday. Our Saturdays have all been great, but they just start waaaay too early for college kids. We headed to Stellenbausch today for a wine tour. I’m sure you all can know exactly what I was doing today. I mean what else do you do at a vineyard besides…
Play with the owner’s grandson, DUH.
Clearly that’s not all the tour was about, but that’s what was the most interesting to me. The owners of the vineyard are the only black owners of any vineyard in South Africa. I can’t remember how many vineyards they are, but South Africa is one of the biggest producers of wine in the world. So there are A LOT. The history of the family and the vineyard were narrated to us by the owner, who was hilarious. He definitely rambled a bit, but he had some priceless quotes during his talk. My favorites was “Ferment please!” as he described the process of wine-making. After we learned how to taste and smell and whatever whatever with wine we had the opportunity to explore the vineyard a bit, including the guava orchard. We picked out different guavas and ate them as we walked around. They were pretty good I guess, minus the 59394579385 seeds in each one.
While the family was grilling lunch, I managed to make friends (or so I thought) with the owner’s grandson. Our adventures started out well. We went to China, America, Stellenbausch, Johanessburg, and the grocery store on our motorbikes. And he bought me ice cream and juice. We were becoming buddies. This kid is hilarious. He has these crazy dreadlocks and really, really enjoys semi-violent playing. As in he’d purposely crash into my bike, or into the wall. We had some adventures for a bit before I got tired and decided I wanted to sit inside to hide from the flies at the vineyard. My little buddy did not like that too much. He actually got pretty upset with me, so our friendship ended when he decided it was funny to attempt to smack my eye out. So my overall conclusion from this experience is don’t piss off the violent children and expect to get away with it.
After our absolutely delicious lunch at the vineyard, we were off to downtown Stellenbausch to spend some time there. The area was very wealthy, very Afrikaaner, and very closed. Everything except a few over-priced souvenir shops and cafes were closed for the weekend. I swear I don’t know how things stay in business in this country. They close at 5 during weekdays and don’t open on weekends. We basically just wandered through the town for a bit before everyone exhaustedly got back into the bus to head home.
The remainder of the day was a mixture of fails and tiredness. Gym fail as Lauren and I walked down there, only to find it closed. Internet café fail, as I always manage to pick a computer that doesn’t have a working mike and/or video camera, or decides to freeze. The only other events of the evening included an ostrich burger for dinner and out for the evening on Long Street. Pretty standard.
Tomorrow we’re planning on hiking Table Mountain which should be intense. I’ve never done something like that so it should be awesome. And painful.
Ukuthula,
Lynn
p.s. HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICAAAAAAA!
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