January 17th, 2008
Today we did the wine tour. It was such a gorgeous day – probably upper 80s to low 90s when in the sun. When we left it was kind of cold outside so I put on jeans – not a very good idea. I was hot for the rest of the day but it cooled down again. People say that 4 seasons happen in one day here and that is very true. It can be bitter cold when the wind whips around, it can be spring like, deathly hot and then can turn into fall later at night. The weather is quite strange but nonetheless it is gorgeous.
The first winery we went to was Altydgedacht Estate. It is a small, family run winery that has been owned by the Parker family for 6 generations. First of all, the view was beautiful. The tour guide, the owner of the estate, was also a very good speaker and informed us on the types of wines that the estate makes, how they make red wine versus white wine and how they have changed/updated the ways that they make wine but that at times, it is more advantageous to use the old way. It was all very interesting and we got to see where they make the wine and where they bottle it. Unfortunately, we did not get to walk through the vineyards or even see them. I thought that is what the tour would be like but it wasn’t. We then were led to their small store that is attached to the winery and had our wine tasting. I believe there were four different wines although I don’t remember the names of them. The first two were white wines and Amanda, you were wrong when you said I would like the white wines. Thankfully, I did not make a face and just tried to suck it up and drink it all until someone told me that I really didn’t need to drink it if I didn’t like it. The third was a pinkish color, perhaps a Merlot, not sure exactly. The final trial was a red wine which I definitely did not like. I know that it wasn’t Pinotache which is strictly a South African wine, which I tried last night at the club and also did not like. Many of my fellow students in this program bought bottles of wine and wanted it to be for the house. They thought that the entire house should have to chip in – I immediately protested because some people do not like wine (obviously me) and there are so many different wines to choose from, how could you possibly agree on just three?
From that estate, we went to a larger, more commercialized winery called Spiel. Supposedly, it makes some of the best wine in all of South Africa. Here, we did not do the wine tour (the wine tour was covered by the study abroad program at the other estate) and instead, we ate at this African restaurant called Moyo. Just for this place in itself, I want to take Amanda there but I have heard that it is EXTREMELY expensive. Marita (the professor for the program) forced the study abroad office to let us go because Moyo has such a good reputation. Basically, it is an African buffet and it essentially immerses you into African culture. We had some men dressed in tribal garments come up to our table to sing and play music. There were some African women who did a traditional African dance, played this really cool long tube of an instrument and then also sang us a song. Before we ate someone came around with water and bowl to wash our hands and then a different person used some sort of white paint to make a design on our faces out of white dots. It was so cool! Plus the food was amazing! It was hard to understand each cook at their station because Africans speak very softly and I am still trying to get used to the accent. Anyways, I tried a lot of new stuff! I know you should be surprised, I was surprised at myself! It turns out that I like some sort of fried calamari. I also tried the ostrich and it was pretty good. It tasted like a steak but without as much flavor. The kus kus (sp?) was good and the chicken was fantastic. I don’t know what kind of fish it was, but they had this fish on a stick that was amazing. It seems like they put a lot of salt on everything as well because everything seems pretty salted.
After lunch, we got to explore. They had a zoo, sort of, with a cheetah in it. I guess you could pay to go inside of the zoo and you could pay to pet the cheetah but we did not have time for it. They also had a couple eagles (yes I got pictures for you Dad as my camera was dying). There was a crafts market with a lot of the types of crafts that you see at the Fair Trade Store and at the markets in Cape Town. They were slightly more expensive because we were in a very touristy area and tourist would pay that price. The one thing that I did buy there, because I did not expect it to be in the Cape Town markets since it is made in the Kwa-Zulu Natal region, was a basket made out of telephone wire. It cost me R85 which is the equivalent of $12.5 (thanks for the money converter Mom – everybody in the program loves how I have it because they use it as well). That is definitely so much cheaper than the ones you buy at the Fair Trade store! I also bought some post cards so hopefully, some people will be getting post cards soon. How long it takes me to send them is another question because I need to buy stamps and find an international mail box.
I forgot to mention that on the way to Spiel, we passed by Khayelitsha, one of the townships that people were forcibly moved to when land was declared “white land”. It was sad, seeing all of these run down shacks that are people’s homes, crammed together in conditions you would not imagine. Apparently, over 40% of the population that lives in this township is HIV positive and over 6000 people live there. It is crazy how the government actually moved people based upon the color of their skin and placed them in such horrible conditions. We also passed by other townships, they were all over the place since we had to pass through the outskirts of Cape Town but I do not remember the names of them. I know of Khayelitsha because some people have their internships in there working to educate them about AIDs.
We got back at around 6 so it was a fairly long day. A bunch of us decided that we should walk to Pick N’ Pay, the grocery store of choice (although quite small and not having the same brands of things that I like such as peanut butter – theirs tastes all natural with no oil = yuck). We were walking down the street and passed by these two people, a middle age women and man. They started talking to us and after the women left, the man continued to talk to us and completely scared us about safety. He apparently knows the landlord of this house and our RA Matt talked to the landlord about this guy. Thankfully the landlord said that this guy is a drama queen, likes to make mountains out of molehills and all of the things he was telling us was way out of proportion. We definitely got scared though.
Anyways, I am really missing everybody right now. I always miss everybody. I love it here but I am horribly homesick which I did not imagine would happen. Hope everything is well with everybody else!