south africa : day four, saturday

21 february 2009

up early, mckendree and i decided we would wear dresses and look girly, since we often find ourselves in comfy clothes on the ship. turns out most of the other girls had thought the same thing. it was so nice to dress up and feel girly :)

this trip was organized by a semester at sea student and included two great guides as well as a tour bus to drive us around all day. there were about 30 kids on the trip and we were all antsy to get going. the morning was cloudy and a bit chilly, but south africa has weather that can change in an instant, so i wasn't worried. as we waited for our group to assemble we watched seals playing in the water around the ship! they were so cute and definitely showing off. they would swim on their backs, cover their faces and spin around. two of them were on a small dock and were sleeping cuddled up next to each other. so cute!

as we drove to our first winery, our guide told us about the history of south africa. the story was similar to the one i heard on my sas trip but it was good to hear it again. she also told us about stellenbosch and it's history. stellenbosch was the 2nd european settlement in africa, after cape town. the man who founded it named it after himself! how modest..

our first stop was the spier wine estate, in stellenbosch south africa. what a place to start. at the winery there was a cheetah rehab facility where you could go and pet cheetahs and have your picture taken. it is a well respected program and many of the other kids headed over there.

we just so happened to pick the best day at spier: it was their wine harvest festival. because we were are in the southern hemisphere, the seasons are opposite of the united states. this means that the summer is winding down and they are preparing for a fall season.

for R50 (5 usd) we could walk around the grounds and taste wines in our very own spier glass. we had a great time learning about the wines from some very educated employees. i know that many of you out there have not been to a wine tasting, so for the record they only give about 1-2 swallows of wine, so we most certainly were not drunk.

there were also kids games set up all over the lawn. beginning with 'pin the trailer on the tractor,' there were grape shaped pinatas, paint your own t-shirt, face painting, wine bottle hoop-la (when you had to get a ring around the cut-out wine bottles.

and then, my favorite part.. grape stomping.

ever seen the 'i love lucy' episode when lucy is stomping grapes?

well.. that exactly what mckendree and i did! first up was danielle and it was so fun watching her.. i used the sports setting on my new camera and got a great sequence of her jumping up and down. then went kelsey and caitlin.. and then mckendree and i! it was so much fun! they were dark purple grapes (which we tested before we stomped.. very sweet!) and we had to climb a ladder to get in. then all the juice went into a big bucket. i took a bunch of photos of the other girls stomping and rennika took some great ones of me and mckendree. afterward we washed off with the hose and ran back to meet the bus. it was so much fun and i'm so glad we found that festival.

our next stop was villiera wines. at this estate we followed our tour guide through the plant where they actually produce the wine. the landscape was beautiful. villiera specializes in sparkling wines and we were all excited to try. after we left the factory we headed over to the terrace to taste a couple of wines. all of them were great but i prefer red over white.

before leaving caitlin and i wandered around to try and get some pictures of grapes and the scenery. its so fun to go around and take awesome pictures that seems so much better than the ones i've taken on my small camera. all the girls love my new camera and took turns taking pictures.. we think its because of the noise the camera makes, its just so fun.

while driving to our next stop, we found out that farmers used to protect their grapes from bugs by planting rose bushes at the end of the rows. the theory was that since roses are such a sensitive plant, that if they begin to die then it was a hint that something would affect the grapes. the farmers were also clever enough to plant red roses at the rows with the grapes for red wine and then white roses for white wine grapes. i think that the practice is still in place, despite all the new technology!

our next stop was lunch. thank goodness, we were starved. lunch was at the red leaf restaurant on the beyerskloof estate. there was a deal that day on hamburgers, so we'd ordered them ahead of time so as to be ready when we arrived. the burger was so good! there was no top bun, so we had to eat them with fork and knife, which was new to most of us. there were caramelized onions on top that were so so good, and it turned out they had been reduced in pinotage wine. pinotage is a type of grape created in south africa, a combination of pinot noir and hermitage grapes. i tried some of the tomato sauce that south africans use instead of ketchup. tomato sauce is very strong and overpowered the food even more than ketchup does. i also tried sweet chili sauce, another south african favorite. boy was it spicy!

i sat near all my girlfriends but also with the inter-port student from south africa, a girl named dayle. she was so much fun and gave us great suggestions as to things to try and what to do with our time left in cape town.

upon leaving the restaurant we were able to take in the great panoramic view of the stellenbosch area. it is breathtaking. now, being an east coast girl, mountains are a new thing for me. i can see how people can be addicted to them. the winelands of south africa are protected by the mountains which provide a great backdrop. all you can see are rows upon rows of grapevines, the mountains in the distance and the perfect blue sky, with toy story clouds. many people have found my disney references amusing, but that is the only way to describe those clouds. clouds so perfectly fluffy and white, like the wallpaper in toy story.

we drove for probably 5 minutes before our bus broke down. what a mess. everyone fell asleep! i think it was much needed, though it delayed the rest of the day. after about an hour of dozing on and off, the replacement bus came to take us to our next stop. we didn't even go a mile up the road, we could have walked!

just up the road was a cooperative where local, smaller scale wineries could sell their products. there was also a small art exhibit with very cool but very pricey art. the guy who ran our tasting was a graduate of stellenbosch university where he majored in wine making and production! what a neat major! he told us all about how he can tell what kind of grapes and where they are from based on the scent alone. we did all those funny things, like swirling the glass and smelling the wine before drinking it. there were even buckets for us to spit out the wine we didn't like! he is starting his own small winery and hopes to get his wines registered soon. he says that the wine industry is very competitive because there are only so many original ideas that have not been thought of yet.

a great way to wind down after a long day. because we'd only had small portions of wine all day, it left us feeling drowsy. i purchased some awesome olives, which also grow in the area and a sauce for ice cream made out of pinotage grapes. i have them both under my bed and don't plan on opening them until i get home..

the big group then split up and the majority of the students went back to the waterfront to go out to the clubs, being that it was a friday night. ren, kelsey, caitlin, mckendree and i went rode the bus back to our first stop, spier. at the estate was an AMAZING restaurant called moyo.

moyo was an awesome experience. first off, its all outside. there were tea lights, christmas lights and lanterns in the trees. it was beautiful and i doubt the pictures will do it justice. the restaurant was huge and had a ton of eating spaces. there were single tables under tents, large sofas with coffee tables, some bigger tents with a few tables and a large buffet area, where we sat. the most unique tables, however, were in tree houses! that's right, up in trees.

as we sat down a woman came around and brought a pitcher and bowl for us to wash our hands in. that was a new one for all of us, i've never seen such a thing! afterward a woman came around and painted our faces with little white designs. i kept calling it white out all night long but it was most definitely ordinary face paint. each person got a different design, whatever the woman was thinking. some had designs cascading down their cheeks and around their eyes and others had designs on their foreheads. mine was very simple and was on my left cheek in a little swirl.

dinner began with some breads and dips. one of the breads was pumpkin and it was delicious! after the little snack it was buffet time. there were several different stations: poultry, different meats, cold salads, rices, curries, vegetables, seafood, fruits, soups and desserts. i didn't know where to start! since i'd already tried ostrich, i decided to try springbok, which is the national animal of south africa! it was alright but too greasy for me. the chicken was amazing! they would dip it into different sauces and heat it up on the grill, so tasty. there also seems to be a lot of feta, everywhere we go! i love it and i had some that were in a peppercorn & balsamic dressing.. amazing. i also did my best to try a little of all the veggies and the rices.

we sat with our tour guides and had wonderful conversation. we talked about their children, their jobs, and about cape town. the woman, who's name i unfortunately cannot remember, talked about how she got into the tourism business which is huge in south africa. she went to school for tourism in dubai! and she said that she could find me a husband from dubai and she'd plan the wedding at spier, which my husband could most definitely be able to afford...

 after feeling so full that i may burst, i nibbled on a dessert but just could not eat anything else. we piled onto the bus and fell asleep instantly. the 20 minute bus ride back to the waterfront felt like an eternity. we got back and quickly changed into comfortable clothes to head back out to the pay phones. after an attempt to get internet.. and failing.. we headed back to the ship. i went to bed quickly and slept well until my alarm clock so rudely woke me up for my field trip..