I met with a couple, Cara and her new boyfriend Andrew, who I had never hung out with before, as well as two girls that I had hung out with once, Marisa and Dana, to go wine tasting at a small town outside of Cape Town called Stellenbosch. Against all Semester at Sea advice, we took the train there since it only cost us R$25 (or about $2.50 US- $10.10 Rand = $1US) for a round trip. While waiting for the train, we got some sort of hand made Hot Pocket. I got the one labeled Salami and Cheese, and it was very delicious! Once we got on the train, we noticed that it was a little dodgy (South African slang for ‘sketchy’), but we made it there, and back for that matter, very safely. The wine lands were beautiful with vineyards as far as the eye could see and little cottage-like houses where the winemakers lived.
Once getting to Stellenbosch, we walked down the road to the first winery we stumbled upon, which happened to be Bergkelder Wine Centre. We walked down a paved way, under relaxed trees and beside a clear water stream to the entrance of the wine center. The tour had just begun and we were a little late to catch it, so we decided on tasting for awhile and then moving onto the next winery. The tasting was R$15 (again, less than $1.50) and included tastes of three reds, two whites, and a desert. After ordering a cheese platter, we tried Fleur Du Cap’s (that’s the brand name) Merlot, Pinotage, and a Shiraz, and we quickly made friends with the tasting room host and he let us all try a Cabernet as well. The Pinotage was absolutely incredible. It was really fun to discuss wines, and thank you Powers, to ask questions about how the wines were aged and in what type of barrel and all that. I really enjoyed myself and felt so educated! Everyone else really liked it as well. Next was the whites. We were given three of them, instead of the quoted two, and tried the desert wine as well as a South African specialty drink called Amarula. It’s the color and consistency of Baileys Irish Crème, but has an amaretto flavor with a hint of orange. It was way too sweet for me, but everyone else seemed to like it.
Next we took a taxi up the hill to another winery called Spier, because that’s the one that is most famous (apparently). First we had a little something to eat and went in for more tastings. The wines here were definitely not as good as the first place, but it was a fun environment to be in. After the tastings, we went to the small craft fair outside of the winery. There were all kinds of handmade beaded bracelets and shark-tooth necklaces and anklets and pretty much anything you could imagine. At other stands were crafts that are found all over South Africa – wire creations. An artist picks and animal or a person and bends the wire, sometimes beads it, to make it look like what they had in mind. They were very cute, and interesting at the intricateness of each one. I bought myself a wooden bowl there.
Soon after, we found ourselves inside a store/restaurant called Moyo. There were all sorts of African crafts and CD’s and art. And once through the store was a restaurant with South African drums that drew us in. A woman with paint in her hand offered to paint our faces with traditional tribal markings (I doubt traditional, but cute nonetheless!) All the girls except Cara did it, and it was “free” with a tip. So we handed over a few Rands and called it good. We found some couches to enjoy each others company and to waste some time before the train, and I wandered around the interesting area and snapped some photos of the place and of the intricate fountain in the middle. Soon it was time to leave, and we got to walk by all the grapes dangling on their leaves and watch the sun set over the hills.
After an hour of dozing in and out on the train, we were finally back at the station and in desperate desire for a meal. We were told to go to Mama Africa’s on Long Street which is a restaurant bar with live bands playing so we caught a cab there and sat in the bar and watched the band with some more people from SAS. The place was beautiful with the bar painted in a giraffe skin-like design with neon colors, lanterns all over the tables, beautiful chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, and African paintings covering the walls.
After waiting for entirely too long, we were finally seated and I ordered a platter with all the types of meat from South Africa. I tried crocodile, kudu, springbok, Oryx, ostrich, and zebra. Out of them all, I thought that the springbok was the best! I’m sad that I have to go back home to eat cows. After dinner (12:30am), the girls and I headed back to the ship for some sleep since I had to be up and ready for my safari by 4:15am.
Sooner than expected, the dreadful time rolled around and I fumbled to get my things together and met in the Union with other sleepy-eyed students. We piled into the busses and got to the Cape Town Airport within about twenty minutes and received our boarding passes and quickly boarded. The flight to Durban only lasted about two hours, but I only remember about ten minutes of it. I even slept through take off! After making our way out of the terminal, we were all met by a bus and were told we would have three hours to sleep until we got to our campsite at Kwazulu-Natal. I took the opportunity, and woke up once we were at the reserve. Stepping off the bus was miserable. The air was extremely humid and were told that the temperate was already at 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit) and it was only 10:30am. Luckily, we were greeted with delicious guava juice to cool down a little, and then rode safari vehicles to our campsite. The wind on our faces felt like heat from a toaster. Once there, it had reached over 40 degrees and let me tell you, I have never been that hot in my life. My whole body was soaked with sweat, and I would bend over to tie my shoe and could feel and see the drops of it pouring off of my face. Taking off my shirt, it felt as though I had just jumped into a pool. So I put my bathing suit on, and some light cotton shorts with a loose fitting tank top, and went to sit in the shade until lunch. I drank four bottles of water in about an hour, and only had to urinate once.
For lunch, they provided us with chicken nuggets with mayo, meatballs with Mrs. Balls Chutney (which is a delicious sauce that tastes like a mix between barbeque sauce, sweet and sour sauce, and salsa), fruit, sandwiches, and soda. We scarfed the food down within five minutes, and were off for our first game drive. Our safari guide’s name was Kaz, and we quickly learned that she was the best leader to go with. She was in love with her job, loved to joke around, and genuinely wanted to know us all. The other guides didn’t even readily share their names with their group.
The clouds rolled overhead and it cooled down to a very comfortable and tolerable temperature. We entered between brick walls and after a metal gate was pushed back for us and passed the guards with guns, and nothing has ever felt more like Jurassic Park than that moment. First, we came upon a family of warthogs right inside the gate. Then, not more than five minutes down the path, we spotted impalas and then zebras and rhinos. After that sparked our animal interest, we were on the search for elephants. Kaz was able to look at trees and the ground and smell the air and tell us if there had been elephants there recently and if so, which way they were headed, and soon enough we can across an elephant that was pretty far away, but still incredible. Soon, Kaz got word on the radio of elephants down in a valley so we headed in that direction, going faster than I thought possible down such narrow roads and swerving around corners like crazy. And just before we knew it, we ran into zabras in the middle of the road. They were so close that I could have reached my hand out and touched the beautiful horses. I got some great photos of them. Then, we came across three rhinos and got several pictures of them before we heard an elephant “distress” call that spooked the rhinos and they went running down the road, which reminded me of Jumanji.
Next we stopped at a park to look at some of the trees and birds. We learned about this one tree that the bark is so poisonous that if you light it on fire and then put it in a basket under water, fish that swim over it will die and float to the top. Apparently, South Africans would do this instead of fishing because it was such a fool-proof way to obtain food. Also, the leaves on that same tree have a paste inside of them that if you touch and touch your eye, it will yield you blind for the rest of your life, and if you eat the leaves, they will make you “run to the bathroom for several days”. Apparently if giraffes are a little irregular, they eat a few leaves off the tree and it makes them feel better. It is pretty incredible how the vegetation can do so much for animals. And that was only one tree!
Soon we came upon the clearing with the elephants where we were allowed to leave the safari vehicle and walk around a bit since the animals were so far away. There were a good thirty elephants in the pack, and we learned that they can have up to 150 in one. After everyone left the area, Kaz told us some of her scariest stories working as a guide for 6 years. One of them was about her walking around a corner and into three female lions and being lurched at three times by an injured one (apparently, if a lion is hurt they are 10x more dangerous because they have to defend their territory and are that much more vulnerable). Another story was about an elephant coming up to her and touching the end of his trunk all over her face with his tusks only a foot and a half away from her eyes. And another one was about an elephant trying to rip her from the car by her shirt so she had to smack its trunk really hard and luckily it ran away. Then we asked her about things that had happened to guests to the park and she told us that in the 1970s, some guy got out of the vehicle after a couple of lions had just made a kill fifty feet away and left his wife and daughter in the car so that he could get them eating the animal on film. Then another lion came up and pounced on the man and ended up being eaten alive by the lions right in front of his family. Another guest videotaped it and now its on youtube. I wouldn’t want to watch something like that.
It was getting darker and so we started heading back and on the way, we saw a dung beetle pushing yes, a piece of dung, with his female mate nestled in the top of it. It was the root of a lot of jokes, and gave us all a good laugh. I’m sure some of you can imagine the nature of them. We saw more zebras, some with babies, on the way back to camp.
Once we were back, we all sat around the fire for a bit and were picked up for a traditional South African barbeque. We were given assortments of cheeses, salads, beans and rice, and salad for starters and then they had all kinds of meat for us to have on South Africa’s version of cous cous (I can’t read Afrikaans or Arabian so my spelling may be wrong) and rice with some kind of spicy tomato sauce. For desert there were all kinds of pastries and cookies with ice cream and chocolate pudding. A lot of people had Crème Brule, but you all know my hatred of that texture, so I chose to pass. Everyone got very tired very quickly since it was such a long day for all of us, and we headed back to camp. As we fell asleep, we were serenaded by the sounds of the African wilderness including monkeys, birds, and grapefruit-sized moths landing on our mosquito net all night.
Waking with the sun, we were taken to the restaurant for a breakfast consisting of yogurt, croissants with jam, cereal, sausage, coffee and tea. We loaded ourselves up with water and met up with Kaz for another day of searching for animals. Not more than a half hour into the drive, we saw elephants on our right coming through the trees and heading straight across the road. We reversed in our vehicle so we could watch them. There were several baby elephants along with more women elephants, the last of which felt extremely threatened by us (Kaz explained elephant body language to us) and even started to charge at us! Kaz threw the Jeep in reverse and quickly got us out of the way, but still in sight. The elephant screamed and began to run into the trees with the other elephants. All of our hearts were pounding, and we were all giddy and laughing about what just happened. After lunch, we set out to find some lions and/or leopards and found a lone male elephant walking straight down the path toward our car. Apparently he was calm and curious about us, but Kaz was still being careful not to upset him or let him get too close to us. It would start running harder toward us and then stop, as if it wasn’t sure if we were worth the effort to go after. We drove in reverse while the animal walked toward us for over 2 kilometers. It was a great day for elephants! We later saw several giraffes, more buffalo, monkeys, a crocodile chilling on a rock, and zebras, but we never saw any wild cats. “The Big 5” is a term that the hunters made up to signify the most dangerous animals to hunt, and they include elephants, buffalo, crocodiles, lions, and leopards. Seeing three of the big five is just fine with me!
Before dinner, we all went and jumped into the pool provided by the campground and then got ready and left to go eat. We had the same food that we had the night before, and I welcomed it since I loved it all so much. Soon, it was time to go back to the campground, or so we thought, so we all piled into an open widow safari vehicle, and the next thing we know is that we are at the pool area! One of the safari drivers thought that we would enjoy going for a swim, which we all welcomed. We jumped in the pool and everyone had a really good time. Later, a lot of people played a game and some of us just sat around the campfire and had a nice time chatting about life.
We left before sun-up the next morning, and made it safely back to the ship by 2:00pm. I was exhausted, so I napped until dinner, and ate on the ship. That night I walked around and found a payphone to call home and talk to my parents for a bit which was much needed. It was great to hear their voices!
I awoke on my last day and got with some girls and made a plan of action. We ate breakfast and then found a cab that would take us to Table Mountain. After waiting in line for ten minutes, we bought our tickets for the cable car up and got in the elevator to take us to the platform. I would have loved to hike the way up, but with so little time in Cape Town, we decided to go the fast way. The cable car was pleasant, with the floor spinning slowly in a circle to give everyone an equal view. Once at the top, we unloaded and saw the majestic beauty of South Africa from the highest point. We could see our ship, as well as Cape Point off to the east. I took several pictures there but they really don’t capture the magnificence (as is most thing). It was incredibly windy and freezing though! We each had a coffee at the top, looked in the store, and headed down. At the bottom of the mountain was a small store where each of us bought a souvenir and I bought some much needed sunglasses. Next we headed to the waterfront to do a little shopping.
First we stopped for lunch at a small outdoor café next to the clock tower. There we had turkey and pineapple wraps and bottled water for under $5 US each. Soon we headed into the craft market and were pleasantly overwhelmed with all of the handmade crafts and trinkets of South Africa. I bought one thing there, and I love it. I’ll show everyone when I get back! (You all love the suspense, right?) After spending a quick two hours there, it was time to head back. I really wanted to purchase a painted and polished ostrich egg in South Africa, but it would have been incredibly hard to get back to the states because of how breakable they are. I walked back to the ship wishing we could have spent another three or four days in Cape Town. There is so much to do there, and so much culture! Musicians play their instruments in the streets and locals come and dance together. That’s something you would rarely see in the states. I loved South Africa, and hope to come back for the World Cup in 2010!
Great Pics! Looks like something you would see in the National Geographic. I still wish I could of gone...Continue having fun!
ReplyDeleteMa