It has been FAR too long since my last update and the gap has started to overtake the urge, so it is time to act, lest I never blog again!
There have been so many great times over the past 3 weeks, from the send off in Guate, to the beautiful wedding in Seattle, then to Portland, San Francisco and LA. Friends and family were great and Nuffy (“Peach” according to Uncle Jim) was the best road trip partner I have ever had. We closed out the trip with a night in Las Vegas including a Penn & Teller show. Totally killer time!
I would love to write reams of detail on the past two weeks, but here I sit in Cape Town, South Africa with a ton of new stories to tell. So, onto the latest chapter.
On October 10th, I left Albuquerque for a full day of sitting on planes. It promised to be quite a long day of travel, but the first leg of my travel went real smooth to Washington Dulles. Something very odd comes over me on a plane. I completely dig everything presented to me (with the exception of the seats). I eat every crumb of the in-flight meal, cry at the stupidest movies (in this case Evan Almighty) and cherish every trip to the little bathroom.
I am not sure why this is. I can be a picky little snot about food, entertainment and toilets, but for some reason that all melts away. I am serious about the movie thing. Action movies are more thrilling, comedies produce belly laughs and I cry to every romantic comedy. I have literally cried a half dozen in planes at movies I wouldn’t even rent. I have even been caught a couple of times and had to lie and say I had allergies.
Ah well, now that that’s off my chest. I finally got down to Cape Town in a semi zombie like state and my friend Greg greeted me with the standard “Howzit” greeting and escorted me off to the bukie (pickup truck) to drive me to their house. Magdel and Greg are close friends that used to live in Albuquerque. I met Magdel through work and we have been good friends since. About a year and a half ago, they quit their jobs in Albuquerque and went traveling through Asia and Australia for a year or so rock climbing. They are both lean and energetic types with endless fuel in the tank for adventure and laughs. They have been wonderful hosts.
When I got to their place, Magdel had a bottle of wine open and some lasagna in the oven. I didn’t think I was hungry, but I ended up having 3 rounds of food. I was really out of it and since I hadn’t seen them for so long, I wanted to talk about life and times, but words were not easy. Odd for me. I went off to bed and slept like a rock.
The next morning Magdel drove me to the Green Market area of downtown. Both her and Greg are now working, Magdel as a Chemical Engineer at Chevron and Greg as a Geosomethinorother Engineer at a large construction company. Magdel had a meeting in the Green Market area and so it was convenient to drop me off to explore.
I was still in zombie mode from the travels, so I wandered around in a confused state taking in the sights. I basically started my process of understanding the place. Cape Town, as we all know, has a recent history of conflict in race and culture. There are 4 main ethic groups here, English, Afrikaans, Coloured and Black. The Afrikaans are the Dutch dissent people who fought for control of South Africa against the English for many years. They have their own language, which Magdel spoke growing up here. The Coloureds are a lighter skinned people who are a mix of Asian and African decent. The Blacks are the indigenous people of the area, as we would say.
I will not attempt too much insight on race relations here since I am deeply under qualified. I will say though, that it is different. That thought kept coming into my head as Magdel and Greg explained the country to me. I tried to impose my US liberal white WASP guilt onto the society here and it just doesn’t compute. There is clearly a class struggle taking place, with DEEP feelings on all sides, but there is no direct comparison to the US. Maybe at the end of the trip I can put some thoughts together, but for now, let’s just leave it at “different”.
After my expiration of downtown, I hung out at their house for a while. Taking a nap or two. Then we set off for the wine country after work. It was a Friday and we were off to Stellenbosch for the weekend. Stellenbosch reminds me of Napa Valley and it is the home of the University that Magdel attended. She has some friends from school that live up there and they own a Guest House.
After checking in, we went out for to a gourmet pizza place and met up with some more of her friends. I got a pizza with anchovies and wild mushrooms that really hit the spot. After that feast, I took my first real deep sleep.
Waking up, I flipped on the TV in the room to check out what the programming was like, and let me say, it is just the worst TV. This was a nice hotel with “Satellite TV” in the rooms, and there were just 3 channels. I found it interesting that there seemed to be a Black station, Coloured station and White station. So, the TV falls into my first good/bad declaration of things South Africa. I declare TV is bad!, but hey, what the heck am I doing watching TV anyway.
When we all got sorted (one of my fav new SA words), we set off to The Strand, which is a beach town where Magdel parents live. We needed to drop off the doggies for the balance of the weekend. The Badenhorscht’s are in there 80’s and still living with a bunch of vitality. Dad was mowing the lawn when we arrived and he didn’t come talk until the job was done.
Mom was inside cooking us my first “Farmer’s Breakfast”, which contained my first exposure to Boerewors (farmer’s sausage), which is an icon of the Afrikaans people. You can’t go too far in Cape Town without being exposed to the Boerewors. Mom was delighted to pile our plates with food and asked me questions about the US’s perceptions of South Africa. In her sweet little voice she asked me if she thought there would be Elephants in her back yard.
After breakfast, we set out for wine tasting. I declare Wine is good! There are just TON’s of “Wine Farms” in all areas of Cape Town that make outstanding wines of all varieties. They are “Beating the French at their own game” with Bordeaux wines, which turned out to be my favorite. The other part of all of this is the affordability of wine. There was a big feather ruffling about 5 years ago where a vineyard started selling bottles of wine above the R100 barrier (R6.5 to $1). Now, the Wine Farms seem to straddle the R100 mark, but I tasted a bunch of blends in the R40-R50 range that were pretty darn good.
We went to about 6 places, where they make generous portions for tasting. Greg was dumping the balance of his tastes in the jug on the bar, until I let him know in no uncertain terms, to not waste the wine and I would give it a good home. After the third Wine Farm though, but clean up activities were leading to a mighty buzz and I backed out of our new policy, but I did keep draining mine to the bottom (as to not insult).
These wine farms were all beautiful, with old farm houses and thatched roof buildings. At the last place we met up with more of Magdel’s friends, where we had a snack of cheese plates to soak up some of the wine. Magdel was the DD for the event, and after the meetup, we were on our way back to the guest house for a much needed nap.
We went out for a nice dinner that evening at a big table of friends and the talk was around the semifinals of the World Cup Rugby, which was down to France, England, Argentina and South Africa. The Sprinkboks (SA nickname) are an international powerhouse in Rugby and they were all looking past Argentina for who they would play in the final. England beat France (host city) and that made for a good rivalry in the finals, if SA won the next night of course.
On Sunday we all mounted up on mountain bikes for a ride overlooking Stellenbosch from the neighboring mountains. I was told that there was a bike for me to borrow, and sure enough they were able to find a big bike for me. It was an “American Classic” Diamondback CroMo tank from the early 90’s. The gears worked and the brake pads were not rubbing on the rims, so it was a worthy steed.
We set out for a couple of hours of riding that was a real treat. I had a little bit of a hard time keeping up with everyone since I was on a heavy old bike (my excuse and I am sticking to it!), but everyone was patient and pleasant. I think the bike got me some macho points, especially through the single track, where the fully rigid machine was quite a handful. After the ride, we all went over the Greta and Org’s (Inn Owner/Friend) for brunch. A super nice time.
It was back to town after that, with another nap before the big Rugby match of the Puma’s (Argentina) vs. Sprinkboks (SA). We were invite over to Jannis (Johnny’s) for a Poikey and an audience for the game on his 55” flat screen TV. Poikey is a diminutive for Pot (Poika) in Afrikaans. It is a stew cooked over an open flame, like a traditional campfire. Both the game (36-6) and the Poikey (Poikey is Good!)were big victories for the Afrikaaners. A big day for sure and I was able to see to much that day.
Monday, I went for my first round of golf at a local course called Mowbray. I got paired up with 2 Cape Towners and a Korean student at a local Golf University. Like schools in the US such as Ferris State, they have college programs here that are focused on running golf clubs. The group was a good match for each other, with T.S. (Korean dude) leading the charge with shooting a 76. I came in at 84, which I was very happy with.
Golf is good! There are tons of courses here and behind Rugby and maybe soccer, golf is a national passion. Ernie Els and Retief Goosen are national heroes. The courses are affordable and very well ran. They have this weird thing of splitting the round 8-10 with a stop at a restaurant after the 8th hole where most people sit down at a table for a snack. The other new think for me is playing to meters instead of yards. That took a little adjustment, especially with the huge winds that day. Wind is Bad!
After golf, there was another nap and then dinner at a pan-asian restaurant. Quite Good. On Tuesday, I milled around the house, read my book and cooked up an Indian Byriani dinner from a kit at the store. They live 2 blocks from a shopping area and I found this kit on the shelf and took joy in putting it together. I got stumped on some of the ingredients, but seeked out the help of Indian ladies in the grocery store for guidance. In Durban, there is a very large Indian population, and some of that populations has spread to Cape Town. That, and the fact that M&G live in an English area of town, lends to having good Indian food and references in the Pick and Pay.
The Byriani turned out good. You basically parboil lentils, potates, rice and marinate some meat (chicken this time) and layer them all in a pot and it simmers for a couple of hours to cook through. That was the even of Tuesday. Then on Wednesday Magdel dropped me off at Waterfront to explore.
The Waterfront here is a lot like Navy Pier in Chicago with tons of shops, restaurants and attractions. I had a great Sashimi lunch with Agadashi Tofu and a glass of wine, all for about $25. Then I strolled, drank espressos and read my book. Another groovy day.
Yesterday, I played another round of golf at Rondebosh, which is a little nicer than Mowbray and I talked myself into a affiliated guest discount J. I am a good little Neute-Kakker as they say here of the Dutch. After the war, many bombed out and poor Dutch took to a diet of eating only nuts (Naute) off the tree’s (I will leave the Kakker translation up to you). Later, many found it later a good way to save money on food, even though they had the means.
The Rondebosch round came in at an 88, which also was pretty good, since the wind was fierce. It was easily a 3 club wind at times and the putting was even effected buy the wind. My playing partner was an English fellow on Holiday taken as a preliminary arrangement with Occidental (Chem Company) before having an 8 month assignment in Dubai. He said they are paying him 4X his annual salary to do the inspections for a new refinery there. There sure is some crazy stuff going on in Dubai.
Last night we went to a great little fish restaurant in that same local shopping center and today is all in preparation for our big adventure! We are heading to Addo Park on the Eastern Cape for a 5 night adventure. This is where I am going to see Baboons, Elephants and all! Whoohoo! We are staying with some friends in the beginning and end of the trip, but the heart of it will be staying in bungalows in the park. Cool!
Well. I have to pack now. Quite the long catch up blog here, so thanks for hanging on this far. Until next post……
DMW
