Wine Country

It felt early when I woke up from a solid night of wrestling with wacky travel dreams. Susie was still sacked out with her arm over her face; so, I grabbed my journal and parked it on the bench just outside our room. It was already a hot one, sort of like a Santa Ana day in Santa Barbara without the irritating wind. From my perch at The Backpack, behind a giant wall, the city can be heard and smelled. Within my sight is more of that familiar flora: jacarandas, birds of paradise, date palms, all sorts of stuff I don't know the names of. Mostly, I'm captivated by a steamy-thick cloud creeping over Table Mountain, trailing off into the clear blue sky, like the smoke from dry ice. They call it the Table Cloth, very clever, no?


By now, it was clear to us that we were not going to have time to fit in everything we wanted to do in Cape Town. But one thing that everyone insisted was not to be missed was Stellenbosch, Cape Town's wine country. This was our plan for Monday. But I was still so sleepy after journaling and a shower that I went back inside to rest my eyes, just for a minute. Hannah's phone call wakes us at 11 o'clock and we're both shocked to find ourselves still asleep. At least we had jet lag to blame it on, plus we're fast to get out the door. Before we knew it, we were piled into Foxy and on our way to pick up Hannah's friend, Charles, my backseat buddy for the rest of the day. Once again, there was an instant, easy familiarity. I had such a great time talking with him about all that's wrong and right with this world that I missed all the scenery between the city and wine country.

Our first stop was Spier, probably the most well-known wine farm in the area. It was big, well-manicured; it was ridiculously crowded. And have I mentioned yet that it was damned hot? Neither Susie nor I were properly caffeinated, so we took care of business and waited for Seanagh and Merle to join us. Once they did, we made a quick stop at the restaurant (Moyo) to partake in the attraction where women paint white dots/flowers on the tourists' faces. I loved my face dots and the ladies who painted me thought my French pedicure was interesting. There was also a very cool display of artwork/crafts at this place. Incredibly original and beautiful stuff. It seemed like most of it was made from what we'd call trash or recycled materials. I especially loved the curtains made from plastic bottle caps. Here's where I found Bob's first wire basket, of which he is now the proud owner of an official collection (ahem, public declaration: my man did, indeed, promise me that he'd get rid of his freaky statue collection in exchange for a collection of baskets...now you all know and must hold him accountable!).

The highlight of Spier was a behind-the-scenes walk, guided by Charles. He's an interesting, hep cat who works for an eco-architect. At Spier, Charles helped build these eco-structures. The details of why they built them are leaving me (it was for an eco-convention at Spier? It was educational, anyway...see what happens when I don't write things down?). Anyway, check them out. They're amazingly cool. Built from bio-harvested eucalyptus trunks (a foreign species in South Africa, pretty much a pesty weed at this point), bamboo and cement...meant to be sustainable, and they were still standing! Don't you just want to throw a party or teach some kids about the environment in these things? They even built bathrooms.

Pretty soon, we'd all had enough of the touristy Spier; so we went in search of a smaller wine farm. We tried out Lanzerac, which looked exactly like some winery I've been to in Santa Ynez, but it was a tad formal for our crowd. So, we moved on to a more remote one called Muratie, which turned out to be the oldest privately owned wine farm in Stellenbosch. Their thing was enormous, dusty cobwebs and a gorgeous garden, which we enjoyed for quite some time (joined by a giant german shepherd named Frank Zappa).

Susie got all kinds of brave and decided to give driving on the wrong side a try. She owned it for a good fifteen minutes, along a stunning drive on the N310, until something started to go horribly wrong with the gears. Hannah took the driver's seat again and all was not lost. We had a quick drive-through tour of Pniel, where Charles grew up. I spotted several avocado trees. Charles told us that the town was where slaves, who worked in nearby mines, used to live; so, there were many fruit trees planted to provide food for themselves and their families. The town had, yet again, that familiar feel. This time, it reminded me most of residential neighborhoods in Mexico with colorfully painted homes with wrought iron over the windows, old men smoking on the front porch waving at the cars, and packs of children freely playing soccer in the streets.

I love being guided around. Charles and I are in the back seat talking conspiracies, and next thing we know we're in a little town called Franschhoek for dinner at the French Connection. This town has a Huguenot heritage and felt somewhat fancier than other places we'd been that day. Dinner was fabulous, out on a back patio. Susie even tried a bite of Seanagh's Impala steak. I thought about it, but decided to stick with my green salad and couscous with butternut (LOVE the butternut on everything, by the way).

By the time we were delivered to The Backpack at the end of the day, I was ridiculously excited. For me, the day's conversations were the catalyst to renew my hope in humanity, in happiness, in general. To travel so many thousands of miles across the world, to a continent/country enormously full of grief and conflict so unimaginable to me, and to meet people who share such similar global perspectives...well, it pretty much floored me in the best possible way. It makes me excited that people in my (and future) generations -- no matter what our educational/personal backgrounds -- are willing to consider perspectives beyond our own. We want to spread awareness of self- and community-sustainability. Somehow, there is love and hope for this life business. Maybe it's just my slow-learner syndrome, but I am humbled immeasurably by my inexperience. This simple day, this complex trip altered my perception of the human experience forever.

You know, it was sort of peculiar to come back to The Backpack all pumped up like that. Our only reasonable outlet was to play a few games of pool on the crooked, red table with the tiniest cue ball of all time. We enjoyed more vacation drinks, listened to the mosaic of accents surrounding us, and laughed at the "so five years ago" American pop music on the radio. Before going to sleep, we even remembered to set the alarm clock. We had a date to keep with Table Mountain.