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| Happy on our wine tour! |
We
landed in Cape Town on Saturday, September 21st after a fairly short
drive of about 3 hours from Lambert’s Bay. And we rang in our arrival with a classic pitstop:
HOOTERS.
I’m
not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but Ron and Anya are 100% absolutely addicted
to buffalo sauce. And the Hooters in St. Thomas has
solidified their love of buffalo wings.
So since they’d been in wing withdrawal since leaving the islands in
June, we decided to curb their cravings and make a bee line to some good ol’
American food.
Except
their ranch dressing was pretty much sour cream and the buffalo sauce didn’t
quite taste like the American version but in a pinch, it’ll do.
Anyway,
after our stop to Hooters, we made our way to the hotel that will be our home
for 5 whole nights! A nice hotel
called Fire and Ice, it is located right in the center of Cape Town. Our first night we spent with Ron’s
best friend Gavin and his wife Candace, and we did what we do best: eat and
drink. But it didn’t take too long
to wipe us out so we called it an early night around 11pm. And back to our cozy king-sized bed
hotel room. With a super awesome
hot and powerful shower. Oh YEAH.
The
next night, after spending a beautiful day in wine region, we headed to Madame
Zingara: a Cirque du Soleil-esque
show. The only difference being
it’s served with a 4 course dinner and we are encouraged to dress up funky and
have a little fun with costumes and make up. Being as I left my freaky costumes back in the states, I
settled for a face painting and feather braid in my hair. Actually, we all got our faces painted,
except for Matt, who purchased a sombrero and mustache and became Mateo for the
evening.  |
| Stay thirsty, my friends |
The
show was spectacular. Filled with
acrobatic amazement, singing, dancing, performing and audience participation,
it was truly an awesome show and well worth the $25 per person.
Yep. You read it right. $25 for a four course dinner, show
and drinks. Okay, so Gavin (who works at a hotel)
pulled a few strings to get us a show discount, but normally the price is $50 per
person, which is
unheard of in the states.
I
seriously might move here. I could
get used to these prices.
Oh,
and the 4 course meal was delicious.
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| On top of Table Mountain |
The
next day, Matt, Ron and Anya and I ventured up to Table Mountain, which is the
flat-top mountain (hence, the name) located literally in the middle of Cape
Town. Once again, another spectacular breathtaking view of Cape Town and the
ocean. When we got up there around
10am, it was pretty hazy. As we
were looking down and over the city, we could see the clouds lying over the
surrounding mountains and beaches.
There are a lot of paths to walk, one being 45 minutes from the main
area that overlooks yet another part of Cape Town, or you can walk up the mountain, which would take roughly
4-5 hours to hike up (we opted for the cable car). Either way, we walked around the area on top of the
mountain, which has been “pathed out” in between boulders and bush, making the
area seem as if you’re walking through a garden at some large estate. Matt and I could walk around this area
for hours; we wanted to see the whole length of Table Mountain but we had to
head to the ghetto.
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| Hanging in the ghetto |
Not
necessarily your first place to spend a day in the states, there are a few
“townships” in Cape Town that have actually opened up their area for those of
us who don’t belong, to eat and drink and buy a tshirt that says, “I went to
the ghetto” kind of thing. It was
actually really cool. Apart from
the huge Italian tour bus that came in and made such a loud noise in the dining
area, we got to hear some local African music from a couple of guys who played
drums and sang, and we ate to our heart’s content of meat, pork, lamb and
nshima. With our hands. It was spectacular.
After a week of overindulgence, we decided to make it an easy night food-wise and met some of our
BVI friends, Jason and Paulina at a bar.
Of course, what started out as a “one drink” stipulation, we found
ourselves sitting around with Jay and Paulina’s friends, and talked and had a
couple more drinks than we had planned.
But it was a night of being around Cape Tonians in a local haunt, and
once again reminded me of how similar we all are.
Luckily
we didn’t stay too late; us old people started to get a bit outnumbered by the
youngsters who started to infiltrate the bar around 10pm. So we decided we’d had enough and made
for our comfy bed back at the hotel.
Day
#4 found us once again planning our day around food. It was National Heritage Day, which is South Africa’s Fourth
of July. Well, since we’re here,
we should do as the South Africans, right?
RIGHT!
We
loaded our car up with more meat than Oscar Meyer’s warehouse and found
ourselves in a large park that housed roughly 1000 other South Africans and sat
around with more of Ron and Anya’s friends and proceeded to partake in National
Braai Day. This year, South Africa
was attempting to break the world record of the biggest consecutive braai at
one time (a record currently held by the Japanese, of all people). So there was grill after grill after
grill lined up where you could take your meats and go to town. At one point we had 3 grills going with
all the meat we had. It was really
cool to be a part of their day.
Back
to the hotel around 7pm, full of food and beer, we made it an easy night and
went to bed early.
Because
the next day was the day I’d been waiting for since we first planned this trip:
WINE TOURS!!!
So
far, what I’ve seen of Cape Town has not disappointed me. This city is amazing in how the people
who’ve developed it were smart and built around its nature. The mountains, the hills, the trees and the vineyards are
all a part of its charm. And so
the wineries of Cape Town are no more than 45 minutes away from the city’s
center. 
Luckily,
Gavin was smart and hired a van to drive us around so we wouldn’t have to worry
about driving ourselves after tasting wine all day. We managed to make it to 4 wineries. Since there were 7 of us, and we did
6-wine tastings at the first 2 wineries, we started to run out of
daylight. But we also treated
ourselves to a delicious lunch, which lasted easily another 2 hours. Since wineries close their doors at
5pm, and we only got started touring wine valley around 11am, our time was a
bit limited. But we made the most
of it, and while our driver dealt with wine-tasters of 6+ hours, we found
ourselves verrry humorous.
We
finished our last night in Cape Town eating a South African classic: Indian
Curry. By this point I think while
we were all sad to head out the next morning, we were looking forward to having
a wee bit of a food cleanse.
But
no matter. That’s tomorrow!
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