After a pleasant day of work on Friday, I feel a nice way to
spend my evening would be working out. Alison has been trying out this hot yoga
studio lately and asks if I want to join her. I haven’t really been into yoga
all that much since high school despite living in some yoga obsessed cities and
some small attempts to try it out again. But everyone talks about how amazing
(or terrifying) hot yoga is, so I figure I should go try it out.
We’re running a little late for class so we book it across
the city centre, almost double the distance past where I work. We get there,
and I find myself walking into this total hippie(/yuppie) haven. We take our
shoes off at the door and put our belongings along with everyone else's just out
in the open in the locker room (shocking). There are all these beautiful people
walking around in expensive spandex toting their mats and 1 litre Valpre (or
whatever brand it is) water bottles. I sign up for a free trial week and we
head downstairs into the studio. As we descend, I feel like I’m walking out
into Audobon Park on a mid-July day – it is HOT and HUMID. It feels like home
and I actually quite like it. The studio is packed for this particular session
of power yoga and I squeeze my mat into a spot between two middle-aged tall dudes
with large muscles. I look around and wonder to myself, am I in Austin?? You
know, all yoga studios are the same no matter where you go in the world. Everyone
inside of them looks the same – white, fit, affluent, poured into spandex,
zenned-out.
Before we even start, I am drenched in sweat. The teacher
comes in and we start going through the poses. I tend to get bored in yoga or
feel like I’m not getting a great workout because my heart rate doesn’t go up
all that much, but she does a great job of pacing us keeping it entertaining. I
am sweating so much past any point that I ever knew was possible; my spandex is
completely soaked through, like I jumped into a pool. Everyone is sweating
everywhere, but surprisingly, it doesn’t smell like a gym sock in there.
Halfway through, people are dropping to their mats in child’s pose. This heat
is intense. But seeing that just makes me feel more competitive and I’m trying
to hang with/surpass the middle-aged dudes next to me, so I push really hard.
Not really the point of yoga, but it kept it things interesting.
So, all-in-all I really enjoyed my first hot yoga
experience. I learned that you really need to bring a change of clothes with
you, or you have to walk all the way home in soaking spandex, and that doesn’t
feel good. I also think that from now on, the only way for me to do yoga is in
a too-hot room. I don’t think I can go back to the other way. Ok, I’m sold, the
heat makes it way better.
The next day, Saturday, is a day I have been looking forward
to for awhile. Today is the Stellenbosch Wine Festival. My ticket was R 150
which includes an official Fest wine glass and unlimited tastings from 80 wine
farms. It opens at noon, and we, of course, would like to get there as soon as
possible. We take the train to Stellenbosch and walk to the middle of town
where the Fest is set up. Walking through the gates and being handed my wine
glass is like stepping into heaven. It looks like a country club – nice lawns
and patio furniture, they had a nursery bring in mature trees, winery booths
are everywhere, and Michael Buble is playing over the loud speakers. Oh and its
sets against picturesque mountains and a bright blue sky. I go and sit down
just to take it all in for a minute. Is this real?
Then I start trying wines. At first I have a strategy to
methodically go down the lines of booths in a certain order, but that goes out
the window soon and I just head for whichever ones have the least amount of
people at them. I go mostly for sav blancs and other whites because it’s a hot
summer’s day and some chilled wine sounds nice. Then I decide to branch out and
try rose. I don’t think I’ve ever had rose in my life because I always thought
pink wine was tacky (I’m not sure where I got this idea). And I must say, some
of the roses were not half bad! Then I decide to try a sparkling rose, and that
was just going a little too far. Ew, back to white. I also try a shiraz or two
and this red I’ve never heard of before, pinotage. I also buy some food,
delicious focaccias, fish, gelato. Oh, and spaghetti. Because this morning
while I was getting ready, I decided to pack some snacks and try to save money/make
sure we weren’t going to go hungry (I wasn’t quite sure what kind of fest this
would be… I was thinking more picknicky and less country cluby). So I made a
pot of spaghetti and put it into two containers, one for myself and one for
Cailey, to have for lunch. So in the middle of this country club event, we pull
out our Tupperware and start eating spaghetti. I am a little embarrassed and
try to be discreet, but decide it was definitely a good call doing a little BYO
food.
As the fest goes on, the festival goers start to laugh a
little more, people are taking snoozes on chairs or the lawn. Some from our
group “sleep” as well or just start acting as one can when imbibing too much
fermented grape juice. Ah, the dangers of wine festivals. The last train is
leaving soon and a few of us realize that getting everyone out of here and back
onto the train is going to be like herding cats. And it is. But finally we
have everyone at the station waiting for the last train. The train is pretty
empty except for one meth addict we have to avoid, and it seems like the ride
back to Cape Town will be pretty uneventful. That is, until we pull into this
station called Bellville and the lights shut off.
Hm, the lights going out, that’s odd. Two of us go look out
the doors and see others leaving the train. For some reason (which I still am
not clear on) this was the end of the line. And we’re still quite far out of
Cape Town with a heard of cats. Oh and, its getting dark. Cailey thinks fast
and asks two nice enough looking people walking past if they can help us figure
out how to get home. They tell us yes, we should follow them and stick very
close together.
We walk out of the train station into this very dark parking
lot next to a raised highway. There are many shady characters and garbage
strewn about. Some people started a fire in this parking lot and it smells. I
can tell all the white people (that would just be us) are terrified, which is
bad because if I can tell, so can everyone else. I’m feel quite calm, I think
only because it reminded me in many ways of Port au Prince. Right, that
shouldn’t make me feel ok, but it was kind of familiar and I had a good feeling
about it for some reason. We walk along under this highway for awhile and then
turn towards a deserted bus station. The guys leading us are like, “Oh, that’s
strange,” and kind of look around. My friend says to one of them, “Wait, you’re
scared?? What’s gonna happen to us!” Hm, good question. Just then, a block away,
a van shows up and a guy hops out yelling, “Cape Town! Cape Town!” Perfect.
So there is a semi-formal system here to make up for lack of
good public transport called taxis. The taxis are different from cabs, which
are essentially the yellow cars with meters and its just you and your friends
in them. Taxis, however, are big vans that drive on routes and pick up whoever
and drive like maniacs. They’re usually blasting music extremely loudly and a
guy hangs out the window yelling the destination or just hitting on women.
We’re extremely fortunate that not many people are in this taxi and all 10 of
us, or however many, pile in. At first we kind of have to sit on top of each
other, but the crowd thins out a bit as we move on. In the seat in front of me,
one of the guys starts talking to two ladies who aren’t with our group. They
say they were very concerned when they saw a big group of white people walking
around the Bellville bus station… apparently we weren’t in a great ‘hood. Oh
well, we’re not dead, weren’t robbed, and are now in a taxi headed to Cape
Town; so far, so good.
Just then, our friend who was sleeping at the Fest *barfs*
onto the window (don’t worry its just water at this point). Hunter, who is
sitting in between her and me, looks at me and his eyes are literally about to
pop out of his head. Mine are too. I kind of fold over and put a hand over my
mouth to hold back the disbelief noise my body wants to make. Meanwhile, on my
other side, Cherie’s bladder is about to explode and she is strategizing ways
to either go into her wine glass or out the window somehow. I pull out my
blackberry and get on the gps to see how long its going to take until I'm out of this van.
Luckily it shouldn’t be too long now… Ha, this has turned into quite the
circus.
I’m sure you will be pleased to know that soon we all make
it back safe and sound. The taxi guys are nice enough to drive us right up to
our apartment building. They must’ve felt sorry for us or something. Anyway,
although it may not seem like it there at the end, this was the BEST day ever.
Can I please go to a wine festival every month? Incredible.
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