One Glass, Two Glass, Red Glass...Blue Glass?

We woke up early this morning to get a jump start on wine tasting -- that's right, the vineyards open at 9am. After consulting with the owner here at Cotswold House, we ended up booking a guide who she referred to as "her guy." Our motivations for this decision were twofold:

1 -- With a guide, neither of us needed to drive, guaranteeing that there would be no more run ins with Cape Town's finest.
2 -- A guide would also guarantee that we got the inside scoop

Our guide, Charles (Charlos) was awesome and is highly recommended for anyone planning a trip here (www.charlostours.co.za).



Charlos picked us up from the B&B and we were on our way east towards Stellenbosch, one of the three major growing regions in the cape winelands. The first vineyard we visited was Spier, and it was definitely the most "touristy." We didn't do any tasting here, however we did tour the gardens and terraces and we DID get to see a cheetah. Did you know that there are only 7500 cheetahs left in the world and that they purr REALLY loudly??

The organization keeping the cheetahs also breeds Anatolian shepherds to give to local farmers. These shepherds scare cheetahs away, protecting livestock from the cats, and ultimately the cheetahs themselves from irate farmers with guns. We saw a couple of the shepherds...we would most certainly NOT mess with them.

Ok, enough of the wildlife lesson and on to the wine! Our first tasting was at Rustenberg. Here's Roland, who guided us through their vintages:



Roland helped select three whites and three reds for us to try including a Roussanne, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, OVR, Bordeaux Blend, and Cabernet. The apricot, peach and guava scents in the whites were really unique. We meandered through the gardens on our way back to the car and were soon on our way to the next stop, Tokara.

Tokara is a very young and modern looking vineyard that also specializes in olive production. We sampled mostly sauvignon blanc and chardonnays here but the olive pairings added a different twist. Six more wines, 6 olives and some olive paste later and we were on our way. I opted to pass on the brandy tasting.

We continued on through Stellenbosch to Boschendal vineyards where we had lunch at an outdoor cafe. We skipped the cellar tour and tasting here, instead trekking north out of the Stellenbosch region into the town of Paarl - another well known wine region. With a check of our clock and strategic planning to maximize our vineyard visits before closing time, we headed to Fairview. We were surprised to discover this is the vineyard that makes "Goats Do Roam" a wine label that we've purchased in the US and were first introduced to by a South African while on a ranch in Wyoming. We also paired these six tastings (including viognier, a white wine we'd never heard of before)with cheeses made at the estate.



We enjoyed everything from cranberry infused blue cheese to a smooth Havarti and also some really tasty Camembert and brie cheeses. Back to the car and the onto Seidelberg Wine Estate. We toured the cellar and learned about the picking process as well pressing, fermenting, and bottling. Walking through the giant vats and seeing the open containers of juice absolutely gave us a new appreciation for the complexities of wine production. Back inside, we sampled a pinotage, a Syrah and chardonnay among others.

As the clouds rolled in, we decided to call it a day after six vineyards and four tastings. Charlos returned us to Cotswald House where we headed upstairs and promptly fell asleep. Another hard day in South Africa. Tomorrow, if the weather cooperates, we'll be heading up Table Mountain and meeting up with our Gecko Tours group for dinner. The 60 day safari begins!

Peter Meets the Police

After breakfast, we hopped into our Toyota Yaris and set off for the Cape of Good Hope. We accidentally made a few right (correct) turns and wound our way down route M5 to Muizenberg then onto Simon's Town where we stopped for some penguin viewing. Advice from our friendly parking lot attendant indicated we should bypass the visitor's center, walk an extra 100 yards and view the penguins without paying ZAR 54. Special thanks to Pete's dad for lending us his super duper camera -- it takes fantastic pictures, check out our new slide show on the right.

Back on the road, we happily slowed down for (read: almost ran over) a family of baboons that was taking it's time crossing the road. Thankful that they didn't jump on the car and make off with our antenna (like they do at Six Flags), we carried on south to the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve.



The Cape of Good Hope is unbelievably beautiful (thanks to all of you who recommended it!!). Picture an amalgam of RT 1 in Northern California, the alpine zone of the White Mountains, and the colorful fauna of Martha's Vineyard -- then amp it up. We hiked up to the Cape Point Lighthouse, past an abandoned WWII radar station (which made us think of our friend Will, who's working at a radar station literally on the other side of the globe in Thule, Greenland -- dare you to Google map that one).

After we made our way back down, Peter took a shot at driving and we snaked our way up M65 and M6, past some rogue ostriches, back towards Cape Town. He did better than me on the left side of the road. It hurts to write it, but he did. Though we both invariably try to use the windshield wiper lever as a turn signal...

On the way back north we went up the west side of the Cape, through the Misty Cliffs and past the Kommetjie Lighthouse. The sun was setting and we can confirm that African skies are pretty sweet.



After some winding about downtown Cape Town, we arrived at the V&A Wharf for some food. Pete found a gear store we had to peruse before we settled down for dinner -- the gear was awesome, but we haven't found an excuse to buy anything yet.

Since we're in South Africa, naturally we selected a Portugese/Turkish restaurant. Dinner was great, but, about the title of this post -- apparently Cape Town is pretty notorious for its drunk driving checkpoints. In fact, we reached one just as they were setting up. Pete was driving, sober as the day he was born...but one of the dozen or so officers stepped in front of our Yaris and signaled for us to stop. Confused, we rolled down our window, and the officer said "Good evening sir, do you know where the head lights are on this vehicle???" Unfortunately, he had forgotten to turn them on. We remedied the situation and were on our way.

That's all for today! Tomorrow, we go wine tasting...

Sunset, Sunrise, Sunset

After 24 hours and 4 airline meals we've made it to Cape Town!

Highlights of our travels included:

- Seeing the sun set and rise in the first flight -- only to see it set again in the second

- My first glimpse of Europe (I think I saw Manchester and our layover was in Amsterdam. No, we did not leave the airport but we did eat cheese.)

- An arial view of the fields of tulips in Holland (it looked like a crayola box)

Our second flight, on KLM, was mostly Europeans. Groggy and totally sleep deprived, we realized that our fellow travelers had a different concept of flying than Americans -- they were up and about, chatting with each other in the bulkheads, sharing drinks in the galley. Pete and I would have probably been more enthusiastic about this if we hadn't just come off a redeye, and if it weren't 3 AM EST. Though, to be honest, the jovial atmosphere didn't prevent us from nodding off in the brightly lit cabin.

And then, after one round of enthusiastic applause for the pilot's landing, we were searching across every corner of the Cape Town airport for our rental car. Yes, we did get lost before we even left the airport. Somehow we ended up in the domestic Budget rental car lot instead of the International Budget rental car lot. Driving on the right side of the car and the left side of the road was unquestionably a mental challenge. Peter elected to navigate for our drive to the B&B. Luckily the roads were empty at 11pm on Sunday night. Only once did we find ourselves on the wrong side of a highway with someone beeping their horn at us. But we arrived safely at Cotswold House:



In fact we just ate breakfast at this table:



It's a great spot, and now after a little food (mango!) we're headed out to drive down to the Cape of Good Hope.

The night before

'Twas the night before [Africa]
And all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring
Not even a [Bernese Mountain Dog]

Aaaaaaaaand we're off!

We've spent the last two weeks pulling together logistics and corralling all of our gear into one place.

After great deliberation combined with packing, unpacking and repacking, we've whittled down our luggage to two backpacks for each of us.
Highlights include:
- 4 Cans of SPF 85 Suntan Lotion
- One roll of TP (paired with ultra handy dayglo orange shovel)
- A tiny tablet PC (yay Motion Computing!)
- An iPod, naturally (the plains of Africa will never be the same thanks to Pete's playlist)
- Larium malaria pills, known for causing vivid dreams and hallucinations...sweet
- 2 Bottles of Immodium

So, we've totally (arguably) got it all under control. And tomorrow, we're on our way to lovely Cape Town, South Africa:

(Drool)

Though the wheels lift off the tarmac at 5:20 PM EST tomorrow, we don't arrive until Sunday at 9 PM SAST (EST +6hrs). Our next post will be from the Southern Hemisphere -- see you all then!

Bye Bye Cambridge . . .

Before our adventure could begin, we had to leave our apartment in Cambridge, MA. We were sad to leave our home, friends and MA family, but we figured that the chance to travel across Africa doesn't come along every day. SOOO, on April 10th with a lot of packing and hauling (thanks Ted!!) we made our way out of Boston and down to NJ. Our stuff is now in an incredibly symmetrical cube in my parents' garage thanks to some highly skilled spatial arranging by Mom and Kevin.


Peter avoided packing any way he could: