The Cape to Franschhoek

Where the penguins live...


Renting a car in a foreign country always imparts a sense of trepidation… this is even more acute when you know that a) you’re going to be driving on the other side of the road, b) you’re going to be doing all of the driving and c) everyone keeps talking about how dangerous it is to leave your car anywhere in public, etc, etc. and the words “car-jacking” and “South Africa” resonate together…

I shouldn’t have worried; driving in the Cape Town area is easy. The roads are really well-marked, people readily move over to the paved shoulder to let you pass and the surfaces are beautiful – probably because they are investing vast sums of money into infrastructure in advance of SA 2010.

We decided to drive south first the other day so that Helene could see some penguins… It was a good choice because the trip was quite nice and as we pulled into Simon’s Town, where the pinguino colony lives, we saw a bunch of whales just hanging out a few hundred metres offshore! All that time in California searching for whales and here, we just pull up and there they were. [Note: just read about these very same whales in the paper – apparently this is not a regular occurrence]. The penguins were even closer… but man do they smell! The majority of them were resting at the beach or out on the rocks although some had moved up into the scrub above the sand. Their guano was everywhere and the stench kind of took away from their cuteness factor. The next time Disney or Pixar does a penguin movie, they should provide Odorama cards so that the kiddies can get the full flightless bird sensory experience.

Because of the haze (and the fact that I didn’t want to arrive too late in the wine region), we didn’t head all the way down to the Cape of Good Hope. Still the scenery around the parts of the peninsula that we did see was fantastic and the sand dunes and surf were the obvious attractions for the tourists who no doubt flock there during the high season.

Heading north, we came across some shantytown housing on the road to Stellenbosch – it just appears out of nowhere amongst the vines and fruit trees. Lots of people walking on the road and waiting for the combis to come by and pick them up. A pretty bracing reminder of the immense disparities between rich and poor in this country… and by many accounts, it is a division that is increasingly class-based as opposed to strictly racial.

Stellenbosch is very developed as a wine region and Lanzerac, one of the oldest houses puts on an “unabashedly opulent” show as the guide book put it. We had a nice cheese plate lunch and tried some of their wines before pushing on to Franschhoek (or however the hell you spell it…), which is a cute little town that is very reminiscent of Sonoma and Napa. Sarah had suggested a place there and wow, what a great recommendation. This is definitely the swank part of the 5 month trip so we enjoyed it and had a great dinner across the street at the French Quarter’s bistro.

This morning we headed north towards Paarl and the Wellington region to visit Diemersfontein, the best producer of pinotage for my money… It’s a nice winery in a very bucolic setting and was worth the drive, even if it was a little out of our way. The rest of the day was spent driving across vast valleys covered in wild flowers and backdropped by incredible mountain ranges… truly spectacular. One funny wildlife sighting: after we came out of a 4km long tunnel, we saw a couple of baboons! One of them was sitting on the guardrail taking the sun and the other, well, look away now if you’re prudish… well, he was masturbating in the middle of the righthand lane… cheeky monkey….

View through the back window...

I’m happy to say that our little car performed very nicely along and clocked a respectable 120 kph, as per the speed limit. Note: school zones along here were posted at a mere 90 kph… I guess Canadian kids’ reflexes aren’t as good as those of the South Africans, given that they need cars to slow down to 40 or even 20 kph! At times today there were long stretches where we didn’t see one other car… we could have been in rural Texas, it was so flat and straight. The mountain parts got pretty technical, though, and as the sun started to set, I was ready to make it here to Camp Hippy in Wilderness… finding the goddamn place was an adventure in itself as the mapquest directions were pretty fucked up. We made it in the end and some food and beer in front of the Sweden-Portugal world cup qualifier reduced my stress level… This place is called Fairy Knowe and is an old Victorian farm. The bar is a big open air thatched roof jobby that totally reminds me of Expats in Ceiba. Except of course that the young East German girl behind the bar is definitely NOT packing heat like Mark and rather than an assortment of ne’er-do-wells, scoundrels, jewel smugglers, car thieves and arms dealers, this place is currently occupied by hippies. Head hippy seems to be the german girl’s boyfriend and I just got the pleasure of seeing him send her on a guilt-trip for some narcissistic reason before forgiving her for whatever perceived (non-existent) slight had occurred… nice.

Oh, and did I mention the scorpion that I just saw outside the door of our farmhouse room? I told the girl and she said that if it was black, then it is VERY poisonous… it was black. What is it with us and creepy crawly poisonous things? Sigh. Oh well, nothing could possibly beat that hotel at Lago Yojoa in Honduras. Between the electrocution shower, the cockroaches and the coral snake living under the bed, it was a miracle we got out of Longwood alive! : )

The wee beastie that greeted me at the Victorian farmhouse...

Tomorrow it’s off on a hike or a canoe trip or both. Then back to Cape Town for a couple more days before flying to Namibia on Wednesday.

Ps: just went on a wee hike along the Toews river. It’s a very lush zone and the symphony of birdcalls was absolutely brilliant. The highlight of the trail, though, was pulling ourselves across the river on a pontoon… fun! Oh, and when we got back to the road, the ranger lady told us that some guys had just come across a puff adder on the road we were taking to get back to the farmhouse… and me without my machete! Hmmm…

Now it’s off to explore the Garden Route east a bit before the long drive back to CT tomorrow (Cape Town, not Connecticut). And, joy of joys, this one seaside town is famous for its oysters! I do believe that Helene was hiding this from me… ; ) But, ha ha, I read the guide book and discovered it this morning over some seriously yummy granola, yoghurt and fresh fruit. Hippies do granola well.