That night we stayed in Paarl where Chris' dad lives and works managing the wine vineyard Anura. We had a late evening braai. We snacked on lovely cheeses with different spreads that they make on the vineyard while the poikie cooked.
MONDAY
Looking out over Paarl and Wellington as we drove down from the mountain pass.
How cute is Chris’ Dad’s place!
I love this tree!
Check out this plant. Another one that just amazes me. It grows to be as tall as me and people have them growing in their gardens everywhere.
Tuesday, we did wine and cheese tasting in the morning on the farm. We then went perusing around Paarl. We got to see Stellenbosch University, one of the best around and it reminded me a lot of Virginia Tech, i.e. tons of students and a beautiful campus. We also drove through Franschoek, a small, quaint French town that when we travel back through again I would like to explore more. In the late afternoon we got to meet Chris' mom and have an afternoon tea. Tea, tea, tea it's the way to socialize here. I still manage to forget to offer people tea when they're over. Thankfully Stephen makes up for my slack.
TUESDAY
The outside of Anura’s Wine and Cheese Tasting.
Is this bird not beautiful. I’ve never seen on like it.
Do you see the wooden frog Thandi is playing with? It has a ridged backside and a hollow inside. When you run a stick down its back it sounds like a frog croaking. They are the funniest little things. Anura’s symbol is of a frog, so they have a few throughout the place.
A tour throughout their restaurant.
Seating on the back side.
These are one of my favorite plants around. They grow to be some times 3 feet in width. To me they look like massive green flowers.
Here you can see the Anura logo on the wine barrels.
Dining Indoors.
The outdoor seating in the front.
Another interesting plant we see a lot. This plant can get as tall as me!
Our cheese tasting platter.
We got a personal tour of how they process their wine. Here are their different types of barrels to age the wines.
The massive wine vats. I believe the largest one contained 39,000 liters of wine.
Something we’ve found very strange here are the cemeteries. There is no grass, nor flowers! They are so stark to me. This particular one was next to a flower garden we wanted to see.
This is the French monument/museum in Franschoek.
Does anyone else love old doors and ornate windows like I do!?!
Check out the strange plants here.
Especially this one!
We went to go see Nelson Mendela’s jail house.
The front of his home.
The back yard.
The view, pool, and braai area. If I ever get put in jail I would want a place like this! :)
Wednesday, we drove to Cape Town and settled in to Chris' brother's fiancé’s place. We spent the afternoon mostly shopping. We shopped the outlet stores, shopped the African markets, shopped the used book stores, and then settled our afternoon at a pub for coffee. I got the coolest bracelet that afternoon. It's made from one piece of wood but it winds around your arm like a ribbon. It just screams Africa to me. I love it!
WEDNESDAY
Cape Town’s down town streets.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE buildings with detail like this!
I love old churches nestled into the middle of cities. There is something awe-inspiring about them.
How cool is this painting. Notice it’s done by hand impressions.
Thursday was lovely. We had beautiful weather. We originally planned to do Table Top Mountain but the line was horrendous, so we'll save it for another time. Instead we did a drive along the coast. It was stunning. I have some pictures from that day that look like we're a part of a fantasy land. We saw penguins on the beach and more dolphins then I've EVER seen. There must have been at least 30, it was amazing! There were two couples who kayaked right out in the midst of them all. I was so jealous. They were so lucky! We stopped in a small town called Fish Hoek to have fish and chips for lunch. I was dreading it. I HATE fish and chips or at least the ones I had previously in London. They were VERY oily and made me sick. These were AMAZING though. The fish was perfect and delicious. I LOVE healthy food and that being said I would still put this meal on my top 10 list for sure! Since our lunch was by the harbor we walked along their fish market. We even got to see seals up close and personal. They were swimming along the fishing boats. There was one seal that was huge. I couldn't believe I was so close to it outside of a zoo! Haha! After this we headed back for Cape Town's water front because this snazzy restaurant, Sevruga, had half price sushi before 6. If it wasn’t for the special, this place would have been too rich for our blood. We met Chris’ siblings there and the sushi was DELICIOUS. We even ordered some with eel in it. Eel to me has the texture of squid but tastes like steak. Afterwards we strolled the shops until dark and then headed in for the night. We could not make the day officially complete without playing a couple games of Settlers of Catan, which were quite intense! This is one of our favorite board games and it seems whoever we introduce it to loves it as much as we do.
THURSDAY
View of Cape Town from Table Mountain.
Table Mountain
The beginning of our drive along the coast. This is just on the other side of Table Mountain.
These peaks are a set of twelve different peaks called the Twelve Apostles.
This is Hout Bay Harbour. Quite stunning.
Check out this church in the middle of the mountain. Amazing.
Can you see the lone penguin?
Part of the 30 or so dolphins we saw.
We originally came to the beach of Simon’s Town for the very purpose of seeing penguins which typically reside on the beach. While exploring the area these penguins were the ones we saw up close and personal. They weren’t even on the beach they were in the parking lot. haha
This one ran under a car to hide from me.
Amazing tree.
Our walk along the fish market.
Drying the fish.
Is he not what you imagine an African fisherman to look like!
The wild seal that came to say “Hi”.
I LOVE this fishing boat.
More fishing boats, but this time they are down by Cape Town’s water front where we ended up for the evening.
For the women out there. Who LOVES this fabric with me!?! It’s the designer in me :)
Chris and his siblings, Tracey and Phillip our gracious host.
Walking along the shops as the sun went down.
More seals. That’s their flippers.
Is this piece not crazy!? I’m pretty sure it’s hand carved.
Check out this detail!
Friday, was kind of a hodge-podge day since we were heading out of town. We stopped at a used book store for me where I picked up two South African classics by Dalene Matthee a South African writer. She’s written a few books, but the two well known ones are Circles in the Forest and Fiela's Child. I bought both of these. I loved Circles in the Forest. Then we headed to some discount stores for Chris and Thandi. Our maps were really poor so on the way there we got lost in Cape Town's worst. I didn't feel unsafe but we were definitely aware that (A) we didn’t belong and (B) we needed to get out of there. Thankfully we were able to leave that area shortly after....lesson learned. After shopping we headed out of town and arrived home around 7 pm. It was a wonderful but exhausting time of non-stop travel for two weeks between the two trips. We felt like we needed a vacation from our vacation. The funny thing is the very next night we had students over for dinner. Haha! The never ending life of student ministry. Thank goodness we love it!
