[Originally published September 28, 2012] Back in 2007, the September 27th blog entry covered the second half of the South African trip my friend Luke and I took. We covered a lot of ground in 10 days, but the second half was jam packed. After stoping at the Southern most tip of Africa, we continued west to wine country, then further along the coast to finally arrive at Capetown.
What is The Big Trip Redux? Go here to find out.
Tasting Tanins
Wine. Wine. Wine. Yes, and more wine. Really, there was wine, I swear, there was wine. This is honestly how I remember this part of the trip. Drinking lots of wine, learning about what I was tasting and eating lots of food, especially braai (South African for grill) meat (this is long before I started eating vegetarian, but I might relapse if I ever go back!) We spent most of our time in wine country with Luke's friends Clayton, head winemaker at the Môreson Wine Estate and Leigh, his then girlfriend, now wife. There was also some maddeningly delicious goat cheese from the Fairview Wine Estate who houses goats to bring in the tourists, oh and it does!
Mountains without chairs
Capetown, South Africa surrounds a rock formation known as Table Mountain (get it, no chairs?!) A speedy cable car ride gets you to the top, some 3500 feet above the city, where I remember it being eerily quiet. The view from the table top is indescribable - to the north, a sprawling coastal city, wrapped around the base of the mountains, kissing the sea, the south, seemingly eons of rocky mountains, all the way to the tip of Africa. It's a show stopper.
Another South Africa custom that I grew to love was the 'sundowner.' Sundowners are like happy hour, but better, because there is always wine and always yummy snacks, like cheeses and charcuterie. In Capetown, the tradition is to head over to Signal Hill, which faces west towards the Atlantic Ocean, lay down a blanket, set our your wine and snacks, and enjoy the last few moments of the sun until it splashes into the ocean. Amazing.
Monkey Junk
South of Capetown, there are dozens of small coastal towns. We passed through a few of them on our way to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope, the other southern most tip of Africa (always much to be debated.) This peninsula is a real-life Mordor with rocky cliffs and hazy blue skies from the ocean mist. In Simonstown, we saw Jackass Penguins and wild Baboons in the street, and a few right whales off shore. In Fish Hoek, we stopped for traditional Fish-n-Chips to eat by the sea shore with endless shades of turquoise blue as the backdrop. Fish Hoek was the home of the fish huts that I fell in love with which made me want to shoot our own 'Beatles Album Cover.' For real, can't you see that gracing the cover of a vinyl?! ;)
Lastly, the final photo below proves that I was once a Nikonian. Yes, back in '07, I shot with a Nikon D80 + kit lens and probably mostly in Aperture priority. Oh, those were the days!
Check out the original post from September 27, 2007 here.
Enjoy!!
