Cape Town: Wine Tasting & Stocking Up!

I promise I'm almost done!

Highlight #5 -- I extended my trip in Cape Town, thanks to our fabulous travel agent, to go wine tasting in Stellenbosch! It was quite possibly the most fortuitous, unplanned trip I've ever taken. Earlier in the week at FIGO, I actually ran into a fellow Fogarty -- Ben, who's living in Zambia. I definitely thought I hallucinating the first day in Cape Town when I heard someone yell 'Malavika!' He was psyched about the wine tasting trip -- and since his girlfriend from Wisconsin was coming to Cape Town that week to visit, we had a trio.

The Fogarty picture :)

Now we only needed to find a ride out there... and public transport was not an option. So I contacted my newfound Lion's Head hiking friends, who were also interested in the trip... but now we had 5 people and their car only fit 4. So they put out their feelers until they found another friend to join the trip!

Meanwhile, it turns out my brother knows the son of the owner of Backsberg, a winery in Stellenbosch! And since we weren't picky about which winery we went to and Simon Back, the owner's son, was willing and eager to do a tasting for us, we had the perfect plan... and the perfect day for the trip. Apparently the day we went out to the country was one of the most beautiful days in Cape Town in a while.

Driving in to Backsberg

Simon was really funny - totally baffled by this random group of people who essentially didn't know each other :) He explained the history of Backsberg, which is quite interesting -- his family is of Lithuanian Jewish heritage, and his great-grand parents escaped the Russian pogroms in the early 1900s to Cape Town -- apparently a common destination at the time for Lithuanian Jews!

The random crew -- Simon is next to me

We lounged in the sun as we tasted a bunch of wines -- chenin blanc, viognier, sauvignon blanc, pinotage, cab-merlot, and their award-winning klein babylonstoren. The pinotage was by far the most unusual-tasting wine I've ever had -- very smoky! My favorite white was actually the viognier -- really fruity! But of course the klein babylonstoren was the strongest red and overall my favorite. We had lunch underneath the trees and spotless blue sky, surrounded by the mountains -- it was simply idyllic. And only 40 minutes away from Cape Town! Really, I could live in Cape Town.

The Stellenbosch countryside

We headed back via the town of Stellenbosch, which was sleepy and definitely much smaller than I anticipated -- but they have cute statues of animals throughout town!

Of course, I needed a picture with one of them!

Check it out -- the chinese massage is behind the japanese restaurant... ?!?!

Cute coffee shop in Stellenbosch

That night was actually Ben's girlfriend Alex's birthday, so we went out to a swank place at Camps Bay, a slightly trendier area on a different bay than Cape Town with a live jazz band! Alex is vegetarian also, so I was in luck -- we had an amazing spread of sweet potatoes, beans, mushrooms, and asparagus. I haven't been that satisfied in a long time!

...which brings me to the last highlight!

Highlight #6 -- I used my 100 rand ($13) breakfast coupons at the grocery store under the hotel, which allowed me to stock up on nuts, dried fruits, honey, and peanut butter! They also had amazing yogurt but sadly I could not bring that back. Fine dining is definitely a priority in Cape Town -- the food was simply amazing!

Aaaaand, that brings me back to Moshi -- exhausted after another 11 hr journey that required a 4am wake-up and lacked a business class upgrade, but going to Cape Town was definitely the rejuvenation I needed -- in more ways than one!

One final view of Table Mountain, as I said goodbye to Cape Town