Day 102: "We Are The Girls"

My weekend was so incredible that I’ve spent the day today in that funk you get after you go on a really good vacation. Christy came back in from Joburg on the good ol’ Intercape bus Friday morning. Love that bus. I make sure to stock up the day before on food and drink, so when I get home from work we have a leisurely evening baking chicken and veggies while having cocktails and getting ready. Too bad my cooking skills are a nightmare, I keep trying to pull it out of the oven too soon and almost give us salmonella. We survive dinner and head out to my fave spot, Club 31 of course. We’re on a mission to mac on boys so all sorts of shenanigans ensue. My favorite is when Christy tells a German boy that he needs to take social responsibility for the holocaust (something about owning your whiteness) and as he storms off another guy comes up to her and says, “My girlfriend and I think you’re cute.” HAHA. Meanwhile, I have no idea where she is and am getting this Dutch boy’s name (not number) so I can find him on Facebook (oops, still need to do that), and am then intercepted by a British boy who says he can help me find Christy, or something like that, while thrusting a bottle of Grey Goose into my arms. Thank you? We find Christy by the bathroom and I decide its time to split, we do have a big day tomorrow after all.

I have planned a very promising wine tasting day in Franschhoek, the best wine valley ever, for Alison, Christy, Biva, and me. Alison found a driver for us named Lemon (!), who agreed to take us around for the entire day for R 800. Pretty darn good. I printed tons of maps and directions and phone numbers of wine farms to be over-prepared for navigation so even a child (or drunk person) could do it.

We’re meant to leave at 9:30 so we can get to the first wine farm, Boschendal, as I’ve booked a 10:30 cellar tour. We do pretty well getting ready I think, all things considered. But then Christy gets distracted by tiny pizzas on the way to the atm and buys one for everybody. It’s a nice surprise, but we get to our first wine farm a little later and miss the cellar tour. Oops, guess we’ll just have to start drinking! They give us a list of wines to select from and we each get six glasses. This place makes an amazing blend of chardonnay and pinot noir, it was one of the most interesting wines I’ve ever had! And we’re all very taken with a white blend called Le Bouquet, which we end up buying three bottles of. Then its time for the 11:30 cellar tour! We learn on the tour that we’re at the second oldest winery in South Africa – founded in 1685. We see the place where they crush all the grapes and about what they do with grape skins and things like that. At the end of the tour, we go to this place called the wine library we’re the wine makers sit around and drink wine surrounded by all their fantastic creations. I find myself wishing very hard that I had a wine library. Maybe someday.

Next we find Lemon and head to the next winery for our lunch reservation. I found a place online that does gourmet picnics on their beautiful grounds. You should seriously check out their menu, the amount and variety of delicious food they give you is unreal (www.solmsdelta.co.za). And you get a bottle of wine per two people on the picnic. As we pull into the farm, some guys in the lane look at us. Just then, Christy pops her head out the window and chirps, “We’re here!!” I nearly die laughing. Then we get to the restaurant and there are our beautiful baskets waiting for us with my name on them. I’m so proud! We pick a bottle of sav blanc and rose’ to accompany us and then we’re told to follow the person carrying off our baskets. She leads us to a trailer attached to the back of a tractor and sticks our baskets on it. I nearly lose it, WE’RE GOING ON A HAY RIDE! And its in the most BEAUTIFUL PLACE IN THE WORLD. Seriously. There are majestic mountains and grapevines turning a shade of gold in autumn, drenched in sunlight. The lawns are green and the weather is perfect. The tractor pulls us through the fields and past a pond covered in lilies, then over a bridge to a grassy knoll. You can hear a creek rushing by. We pick a nice spot on the grass under a big oak tree and spread out our blankets. I could cry I’m so happy. We all look at each other knowingly, this really is a special day. Then we pig out and drink lots of wine.

We end up staying at Solms Delta much longer than I anticipated, because it is much better than anyone could’ve anticipated. We explore the paths through the forest, play in the stream, lay in the sun on our picnic blankets, smell some flowers. I think everyone looks like magical fairies here, its so beautiful its surreal. I wonder out loud when an elf is going to pop out of a bush and grant us three wishes. But sometime around 2:30, the tractor comes back to get us.

The next winery on the list is La Motte. When we drive up the lane at this wine farm, we are greeted by a large, fabulous fountain – a woman holding a wine cup that is forever overflowing. I wish I had that cup. We stop and take pictures with her and then head to the tasting room. It also takes more time than I expected as, again, we’re having such a marvelous time, and the tasting here is 8 wines. We actually don’t make it out until after 4:30 when most of the wineries cease tastings.  So we can’t really continue on after that but are more than content with the amazing day we have had. To end the tour, we drive into Franschhoek and take pictures at the monument and do a little exploring around town. Christy buys a box of macaroons for everyone at a coffee shop.

Then we drive back into town for dinner. Lemon plays us his American playlist, which has a lot of Chris Brown on it, while Christy and Biva fall asleep. I stare out the window and watch the sky change dramatic colors over the mountains and vineyards. I am happy.

We have Lemon drop us off at Arnold’s on Kloof. Love that place. They have a special called “Stew 4 U 2.” It’s a potjie which is like Afrikaans (I think) stew. I pronounce is pot-jee and Biva almost falls out of her chair laughing at me because its actually pronounced poy-gee (hard G). She tries to tell the waiter and I cut her off and yell, “NO BIVA don’t tell him!!” because I’m embarrassed. Anyway, the Stew 4 U 2 is two bowls with pasta/potato-y things in them and a little pot of beef stew that comes with a bottle of wine for R 119. Alison and I split it and it is delicious. My little Biva gets a steak and Chrsity goes for kudu. Good stuff all around, and great company. I have LOVED wine touring with these ladies. We literally laughed the entire day, even at the end when we are all tired and hungry and ready to pass out in a ditch somewhere. Still laughing. I love it.

By 10:00 we’re all in bed where we should be. Christy and I sleep for 10 hours before waking up to go to church. I get up and feel like I’m healed, it’s the greatest feeling. After church we run home, make cheese & tomato sandwiches, throw on some hiker clothes and grab Alison to go climb Table Mountain. I haven’t climbed it since February, and I’ve been dying to go up the backside on the Skeleton Gorge trail that starts in the Kirstenbosch botanical gardens. The gardens are SO beautiful. We get distracted for a bit in the “smell me” garden because I looove smelling plants. So we smell all kinds of shrubs for good luck and then start up the trail. Literally up. Its just up, up, up stairs forever. At least its in a beautiful magic forest.

After climbing for awhile, we come to this exquisite waterfall. I’m so thankful to see it because, besides being stunningly beautiful, it gives me an excuse to rest for a minute. Then we’re off again, up, up. It’s a very rain foresty climate, thick, lush vegetation and tons of moisture. We finally make it to this point where they can’t even make you climb stairs anymore because its too steep, so you just have to climb ladders. We climb a few ladders and then the trail becomes a waterfall. This makes me SO happy. Its so cool to climb up the cascade for awhile before getting back onto a real trail again. Before we know it, we’re already on top of Table!

Turns out there is a ton of stuff up there I had no idea about. We play around in this reservoir for awhile, its like a strange desert of random rock formations. One of them looks like a skeleton boat, so we climb inside and take pictures. Then Christy tells us some story about when she was driving around with her friend and all their dogs and she got really excited and exclaimed, “We are the girls!” Alison and I laugh at this, but also agree that it makes perfect sense. The rest of the day, we run around saying, “We ARE the girls!!”

Next we come upon this random museum that’s just sitting up on top of the mountain. No one is in it, there’s just a bunch of stuff they used to work on the city’s water system. The reservoirs up there are very old but still in use by the city today. After leaving the museum we start on the trek to the other side of the mountain where we can catch the cable car to take us down.  Table Mountain looks pretty flat on top when you look at it from the city bowl side. If you see it from Camps Bay though, you can see the 12 Apostles that really make up the top – in other words, it ain’t flat at all. So we basically end up climbing two more mountains before finally making it over to the cable car. We’re rewarded with ice cream! And beer! And a bunch of tourists that we feel better than because we’re all sweaty and worked to get here, unlike all these people that just waltzed up in the cable car.

Again, we’ve spent the whole day laughing, and its magic.

We get down from Table around 5-6ish, shower, then go check out this Italian place Alison and I have been curious about on Kloof. It is delicious! We order a bottle of wine and end up not even being able to finish it. Go figure.

This was probably one of my favorite weekends in Cape Town, it was absolutely perfect. We are the girls!