** Quick note: I’m sure you are wondering how I’m writing
this much for each day when doing a lot. Well there are two reasons. One, I’m
writing this in a very free-flowing style that I don’t normally do, so this is
taking far less time than many of my sports related entries. Secondly, this is
what I do during all my meals that I eat alone. It’s a good way to pass the
time, and makes me look far more interesting and involved than someone dining
alone and twiddling their thumbs (or reading a book, which was my first idea)
**
Day 5 – Wining and Dining
Yesterday was a late night, so I got up kind of late (9:30)
as well. If I was a little more enterprising, I could have done table mountain
today, but it was supposed to be cloudy and with off and on rain today. When I
got outside, I quickly realized that that couldn’t be further from what the
weather actually is. Like every day so far, it is clear skies with patches of
clouds. It is more windy today than usual, which was great on my 25 minute walk
to the waterfront, but it served as the bane to my hair’s existence. I have my
tour pickup back from the Altona Lodge at 1:40 for the wine region, so I had
about 3.5 hours to play with. I decided to go to the Two Oceans Aquarium, as it
is in the waterfront, is supposed to be an excellent aquarium, and I had little
else I could do in the City Center and have lunch and get back in time.
The aquarium is probably a little too expensive for
non-students (104 rand), but it was excellent. I guess it isn’t that expensive
on the whole since 70% of the people there were students or little kids, whose
rate is a lot less, while 25% were those kids parents/teachers/babysitters.
There was a small group of people that weren’t connected to young kids,
including me, which made me feel a little awkward. The aquarium itself isn’t
the biggest, but what it does give you is a whole range of sea life, many of it
in isolated small tanks that you can go right up to. I don’t think I have been
to an aquarium where I could get that close to the fish
.
.
There were a couple of highlights for me in the aquarium.
First, was the lobster area, as they had some of the most bizarre lobsters I
have ever seen. They were larger than normal, more crab-like in color, while
the other tank had lobsters that resembled giant shrimp. The also had a Giant
Spider Crab tank, which was a little unsettling. I’m quite happy that those
animals live in the sea and can’t survive without water, because I would not
want to come across them in my daily life. The other highlight was the giant
Shark tank. The two level circular tank was enveloped by a winding path, giving
great looks into the tank from many angles. There were a handful of sharks, but
also nearly 100 other fish, a few rays, and a few giant turtles. You got good
looks at all of it. There were a few other nice moments, like a tank full of
‘Nemo’s’ which, obviously, was a hit with the kids there. Overall, I’m glad I
went to the aquarium because I go to so few (I can’t remember the last time I
went to one) and this one had some pretty unique stuff in it.
I then walked back to the wharf area of the waterfront. It is far less crowded around noon than it will be in the evening, as expected, but there still is a lot of life, but that life is almost exclusively older people and tourists. I went back to my old haunt, Quay 4 Tavern, mainly because I knew I could get an affordable good meal there. I decided to try a new beer, one that I hadn’t heard mentioned yet, Bosuns, which is a slightly bitter amber Ale. It was excellent, probably the best non-craft (Milk & Honey) that I’ve had in South Africa. I also had the catch of the day. I forewent having ‘Skitterfish’ which was the catch of the day two days ago, and today’s was a more simple sounding ‘African Barrelfish’, but fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. The fish came pretty quick, it was blackened with a Cajun corn cream on top. Both parts were quite good, a nice change after this being the only place with food that wasn’t great the first time around. The fish was large, mostly boneless, and really well grilled. The corn wasn’t overpowering, neither was the Cajun spice. The fries that came with it were really tender, and they have some strange, strong ketchup that works really well also. Overall, I was enjoying the weather and the food so much I ordered another beer, making it the first time I’ve had two drinks at a restaurant so far, stunning restraint for me, in my opinion.
I then walked back to the hotel, walking a nice 25-minute
stretch that I will really miss when I head away from Cape Town. South Africa
is not a dry heat, but it isn’t muggy either. I don’t think the weather is ever
bad in Cape Town. Apparently, it rains and is very windy in their winter, but
evidently not so much so, because they still hold surfing and cycling
competitions during the winter there. I’ve been blessed so far for not
experiencing one second of rain, and there is nothing to lift your overall
impressions of a city quick like having it never rain when you are there. I’ll
miss this waterfront for sure. Vietnam has a lot to do to match Cape Town, I’ll
say that. This actually seems like a place I could see myself living in. All
the parts or there of that equation. They speak English, they love sports, they
have good food, they have great weather that never gets too hot. The one issue
would be that I would then be isolated from everyone I know, with at least a 9
hour plane ride (Cape Town to India) staring me in the face. I probably will
never live in Cape Town, but I would be shocked if I never come back.
I was picked up for the Winelands tour a little late (around
2:00), greeted by six people already in the bus as well as our tourguide, a
jovial African named Dominique. We then picked up five more people at two more
hotels. I was a little dismayed, but not completely surprised, that I was the
only person on the tour under 30 (with the possible exception of one Swiss
girl), but this feeling would not last long. On the tour were a couple from
Sweden, two colleagues from Norway (though it took me about half the tour to
figure out that they weren’t married), two colleagues from New York along with
one of their wives, the girl from Switzerland, and her mother and friend from
Germany, and a couple from London. So, if you have been following, that makes
me the only person there who came solo, again something that made me a little
on edge. After we picked up the last set of people, Dominique told us that he
“always loves to be the guide for the Winelands tour, because everyone on the
tour is happy and looking for a good time.” He wasn’t wrong.
The drive to Stellenbosch (the main wine region of the Cape
– with Frankoesch and Paarl being the other major ones) was about 45 minutes, through
the ‘suburbs’ of Cape Town, which was mostly Colored and Black housing
(apparently, these terms are completely accepted as descriptors in South
Africa, even after the fall of Apartheid). The colored housing looks like any
project in the US, but the black housing were slums. There is no way about it,
they resembled slums in India. Other than them being completely outside the
city, instead of interspersed within, it looked like being in India. The major
difference, though, is the South African government finds this totally
unacceptable, and is building new housing for all of these ‘townships’ (the term
they use for slums). The new houses are small, but look nice, have running
water from taps, and all the other things that are standard in the US. It will
be interesting to see if they can support this, but it is good to see South
Africa so actively trying to improve living conditions.
When we reached Stellenbosch, I was immediately taken aback
by how expansive the region was. Everywhere you looked there were mountains in
the background, and fields and fields of green in the foreground. The first
winery was Zevenwacht. Zeven is Seven in Afrikaans. Wacht is something I
forgot. The road to the main building where the tasting would take place was
quite long, but had beautiful scenery throughout, including one shot of a cabin
in front of a lake surrounded by trees that was reminiscent of a Thomas Kincaid
painting (except with green being the only color). The tastings in the first
winery were accompanied with cheese made by their Italian partner (the cheese
is made on-site). Four wines to taste (and quite generous tasting amounts) and
four matched cheese. All the wines were quite good, including South Africa’s
own, the Pinotrage, a combination of Pinot Noir and ‘Hermitage’ (which is the
South African name for a wine whose name I don’t know). By the end of the first
tasting, we were all slightly buzzed (again, these were very generous portions
for tasting, the most I have ever seen), and some of the weaker ones were
downright almost drunk, which made the rest of the trip even more interesting.
The second winery was quite close, named Saxe…, and it too
had beautiful trees and gardens on the way to their main building. The tasting
at Saxe… was far more fancy and normal for the wine crowd, or as I saw it,
pretentious (in my defense, they had a large chessboard painted on the ground
outside the building for no reason whatsoever). The wines were all more
expensive, and the tasting portions were all far less generous. Frankly, their
wine was a disappointment, but the experience more memorable. Unlike the first
winery, they sat us in tables of 2-3, and with me being the only single, I
chose to sit with the two Norweigens, who were sitting next to the two Swedes. It
was a strange, but extremely enjoyable conversation, as they were conversing
with each other mainly in what I learned to be Norwegian, but everynow and then
they would switch to English, not even to converse with me. The only reason I
chose to sit with them was because they seemed to be having an excellent time,
and that continued with me. The wines were not good, so the Norwegian male (who
is Irish, but lives and works in Norway) kept telling me how he would rather
have beer. The winery serveress introduced their Cabernet as one that beat a
French wine for some award, and the Norwegian told the Swedish, in English,
that “They beat the French with that shit, how is that possible.” The first
tour gave me something to look at, this one gave me something to have laugh with.
Just a good time. We then drove through Stellenbosch the town, which is mainly
just a University town, as the #3 school in all of South Africa is located
there. The drive back was unnotable, and by the end I was sad to leave these
eclectic foreigners and return to the Lodge.
My sadness would not last long, as I was about to go for the
meal I was most looking forward to when I finalized the plan to come to South
Africa. The restaurant is City Grill, their specialty is grilled African meats.
It was expensive, and I didn’t want to pull a Sevruga and order too much, so I
went with one appetizer and one main dish (and a Johnnie Walker black, which
was somehow just 8 rand more than a beer). For my appetizer, I chose to get
Boerewors, an African beef sausage. The sausage was cooked perfectly, being
crunchy and juicy at the same time. The sauce they gave wasn’t anything
special, but what they gave that was, was a little surprise inside what looked
like a spring roll. It really was pumpkin pie wrapped in the thing that wraps
up a spring roll, and it was excellent. The second course was Warthog. They had
many different grilled African Meats on skewers. I chose warthog because about
half of them I had already had somewhere else (Kudu, Ostrich, Crocodile) and
the others didn’t sound as interesting (Springbok, others that I forgot), and
Warthog sounded cool. It came with a creamy sauce with mushroom. When it came,
it looked amazing. The potatoes on the side were once again cooked to a perfect
tenderness. I’m conflicted about the dish, though. On the one hand, the Warthog
wasn’t really anything special, as it tasted just like any pork kebob. However,
that cream sauce was one of the best things I have ever tasted. Oddly, it is a
sauce I would have hated just a few years ago before I turned around on
mushrooms, but it was so creamy, so tasty, so incredible, that the dish would
have been fine if it was just the rice that the Warthog skewer was laying on
and the sauce on top, without any warthog. That’s why I don’t regret taking the
warthog at all, even if it is, as a meat, worse than Ostrich, Kudu or
Crocodile. The City Grill was a hit, so much so that I’m contemplating going
there for dinner tomorrow (because there are so many other meats to try)
instead of Miller’s Thumb. I would go to Miller’s Thumb for lunch and City
Grill for dinner, except I’m the one paying and at some point I have to watch
how much I eat – a drawback of spending so few days in each place.
After dinner, I went to my usual places, Mitchell’s Scottish
Ale House for a Milk & Honey, and then Ferryman’s right next to it where a
live band was playing and people were dancing and generally having a damn good
time. I didn’t dance (big surprise), but enjoyed the music nonetheless. I
would’ve gone to Quay 4 for a beer on the waterfront, but it was extremely
windy all night. I wasn’t cold, but I guess South African’s do get cold easily
as barely anyone was eating outdoors at any place that had access to the sea
and thus high winds. By the way, moderately strong winds making it a perfect 55
instead of a slightly balmy 75 is by far the worst weather I’ve had in Cape Town so far. I can’t explain how
much Cape Town rocks. Cape Town would have been perfect to do after Vietnam and
Cambodia, but the globe just doesn’t work that way.
