CapeTown, Day 2 – Wine Country!

(Written by Jess, posted by TJ)

The breakfast we started our day with at the Acorn House is deserving of its own blog post, but there are more African experiences yet to be had, so a picture will have to take the place of those thousand words.

 Our Afrikaans friends – along with everyone else in South Africa – had sworn that no trip to Cape Town was complete without a visit to wine country. We grudgingly heeded their vaguely ominous advice and resigned ourselves to a day meandering through picturesque wine country, tasting some of the country’s best wines. (How we suffer!)

Town and Country in Cape Town

Last week the office flew Jess to Cape Town for work: one of the portfolio companies based in the area had run in to a bit of trouble and a large part of her internship has been working on the turnaround.  Since she had to be down there Monday and Tuesday anyway, we figured why not make a weekend of it?  The office was not only so supportive that it scheduled our flights, but thanks to a clerical error I was booked on the very early *Tuesday* flight back, giving me an extra day of wandering the city.  Perfect.

Yellow Fever Vaccinations

We just got our shots for yellow fever!  (Yes, yes I put things off a bit.)  But we are now ready for the HEART OF AFRICA!  And will be for the next 10 years apparently.  Wow, that's a long time.  What's in these things, anyway?  What?  A live virus you say?  Ummmm....

Anyway, ONWARD!  (More to follow in this space -- the vaccine kicks in in 10 days, and anything earlier to hint at our plans would just be spoiling the fun.)

On Safari in Kruger Park

We planned an impromptu trip to Kruger Park last weekend. Five hours from Johannesburg (and apparently only an hour or so from Mozambique), Kruger became Game Reserve in 1898 and is one of Africa's largest reserves at 7,500 square miles.

Dinner with Friends

Last night was our second-latest night out in South Africa after spending five (FIVE) hours out with new-ish friends. After two hours out I normally start getting antsy, and three is generally my limit, so it says something about what an amazing time we had that I was enjoying myself as much at the end of the night as at the start.

Our company was a co-worker and his new fiance, both Afrikaans. I'll start by explaining that "Afrikaans" does not mean black, which I somehow mistakenly thought our first few weeks here. Afrikaans is the language that originated with Dutch settlers in South Africa; it then picked up words from a whole mix of other languages, including Malay, Portuguese, the Bantu languages, and the Khoisan languages. My impression is that most non-black folks (in South Africa this means Indian, white, mixed - the last of which they call "colored") at least understand Afrikaans, although only the Afrikaans people themselves - the ones descended from the Dutch settlers - grow up speaking Afrikaans as their first language in the home. The language sounds quite similar to German, only friendlier.

Durban 2: A Day (and night) in KwaMashu

If you’re ever in South Africa, stop in Durban if for no other reason than to go on one of Street Scene’s excellent tours. I was sold from the first time I visited their website – they specializes in facilitating experiences that even a Durbanite would have a hard time accessing otherwise. It turns out the owner, Jonas, is also an incredibly cool guy, but that’s just a sidenote. J

TJ and I had been wanting to visit a township, and the overnight stay in KwaMashu struck us as a terrific opportunity. I should explain that townships aren’t common tourist destinations. Many aren’t safe to visit, and it seems that people who aren’t born in townships would never visit one. That said, it’s been a priority for TJ & me to witness beyond the wealthy neighborhood where we live and work, and to experience the life that the majority of South Africans live. That said, arranging such an experience on our own would be potentially risky in the best case scenario and possibly quite dangerous and foolish in the worst. Enter Street Scene.

Durban 1: The Road to Durban

We took last Friday off to head down to Durban, the old British colony on the eastern coast and named for the British administrator in Cape Town who was lukewarm on the settlement (the name helped to lock-in D’Urban’s support).  Now, the city is known less for its history or its huge port and more for its sub-tropical temperatures and expansive beaches.  Our coworkers were quite jealous.

Our coworkers also insisted that we jump off the main highway somewhere in the middle of our 570km drive to see the “Midlands Meander” described as South Africa’s version of a Route 66 with a number of “cute shops” etc.  “It’s adorable, you’ll love it.  Just get off on R103.”