GABBY - Ben and I woke up to the hot, African sun, which was a bit
surprising since the wind knocked a tree down into the electric fence last night
and made a clicking noise similar to a metronome. After packing up all of our gear, we set off
on our 20 minute walk to the Waterfront.
We had our backpacks and other small bags as well, which made for quite
a heavy load. We made it about halfway
when we decided to hail a taxi. Good
thing too, since we got the car rental location wrong. “Budget doesn’t have a car rental place by
the Waterfront” our taxi driver said, so we checked the confirmation and realized
that it was actually in the center of Cape Town. I’m glad we went with the taxi because that
would have been a long walk. We got our
car, a blue Honda which we named Maria, and we were on our way. I took the wheel since I have more experience
driving on the “wrong side of the road”, as Ben puts it. We had to get one last Kitchen sandwich
before we headed out of Cape Town and onto our next stop. We must have passed it, so I made a speedy,
total legal (not in the US) U-turn and got us some love sandwiches for the
road. They were out of aubergines, so I
tried the honey mustard sausage instead, which proved to be scrumptious. We drove on the N2 until we reached wine
country. We arrived at our backpackers,
Stumble Inn in Stellenbosch, South Africa around 11:30. We had plenty of time to explore the town,
known for Stellenbosch University and more importantly, their wine! I had been to Stellenbosch 3 times during my
study abroad experience, but never overnight.
We rented bikes from our hostel and took off down the streets towards
some recommended wineries. I liked Ben’s quote about the bikes in his journal, “The
bikes were old, uncomfortable, and rickety, but we were not, so we paddled off
in search of a wine adventure.” We made
a right turn up Devon Valley road and pedaled and pedaled and pedaled looking
for any of the vineyards that the hostel dude told us about. We were looking at our map when a car pulled
over and wanted to know if we knew of a lunch spot. We exchanged information: we helped her find
food, she helped us find wine. We kept trekking
until we found Clos Malverne. We walked
up to our first vineyard, looking for a wine tasting when we saw a man, about
Ben’s age, appear at the door looking a bit inquisitive. He asked if he could help us, we replied that
we were looking for a wine tasting. He
told us that he was closed on Mondays. My
heart fell through my butt, seeing as we were so thrilled to have found our
first winery. I was crushed, and my face
must have shown it because he seemed to take pity on us and invited us in for a
glass. His exact words were, “Come on
in, it looks like you two could use a glass.”
We walked into the dining area of Clos Malverne and I lost my breath for
the second time that day (the first was pedaling up that wretched hill). The dining room had a window showcasing the
jaw-dropping, breath-taking view of the Stellenbosch mountains, vineyard, and
lake. Tears came to my eyes as we took a
window seat in the vacant restaurant and sipped on an ice cold glass of Clos
Malverne’s own Sauvignon Blanc. I think
that was the first time that I have truly enjoyed white wine. The guy that let us in was extremely friendly
and hospitable. He wouldn’t let us pay
for the glasses of wine, which was just another testament of amazing humans can
and should be. I told Ben that he should
start writing a book of all the amazing experiences he has had with hospitable
people. Most have occurred during his 70
day canoeing trip from Vermont to Canada.
We discussed going to another winery, but decided to end our bike tour
on a good note. On our way back to
Stumble Inn we ran into a group of school kids walking home with their
guardian. They all stuck their hands out
to give us high-fives. There were so
many of them that we started to slow down.
In no time we were swarmed by these kids, all trying to get high fives,
hugs, or any type of attention we were willing to give. We talked to the care giver, who shouted “Ayoba”,
which I later found out meant cool, great, oh yea! The caregiver insisted that we take the kids
on bike rides. We each took a young boy
on our handlebars and took the kids for a ride up the road a bit. I hugged the boy tight and tried to talk to
him the whole ride. I found out his name
was Gavin and he liked the way the wind felt while he was sitting on the
bike. It felt so great to interact with
children again. The kids were full of so
much energy and excitement, which was contagious. After pictures and a long, Bittner goodbye
(my family’s long goodbyes), and hugs we left feeling alive and fulfilled. What an incredible experience to have on a nearly
deserted road on our bikes. We could not
have predicted that, not in a million years.
We returned our bikes, showered, freshened up, and drove to Asara to
finally have a wine tasting. We pulled
in to a driveway lined with trees on both sides and got out to take a look
around. After seeing the driveway, we
were glad we hadn’t taken our bikes and decided to shower. We were in a whole other proper world,
certainly one without dirt, sweat, and bike grease. We tried three different wines that tasted
delicious in their own ways. After our
tasting, we went to dinner at Ryneveld ˚5.
We shared a carafe of red wine before gorging ourselves on specialty
burgers. This restaurant had a very
trendy, artistic vibe and served fabulous grub.
We weren’t quite ready for bed, so we went to Bohemia, which is a bar
close to the university. We spent the
rest of the night drinking brandy (South Africa’s equivalent to America’s rum)
and cokes, flirting (with each other), people-watching and singing chapel choir
songs all the way home.
No comments:
Post a Comment