South Africa, standard. : August 2013

It's been a while since my last post, since then I've moved into a new apartment, have adjusted to being back in New York, started working again and am currently in Wisconsin visiting my family in their new home in a town called Marinette. All that aside I do want to finish posting some things on here if only to have them written down, if others read it as well then that's just a bonus.

As my last post left off we had decided to make a spur of the moment detour into the mountains in an area known as Oudtshoorn to visit a small town called Montagu. According to my trusty guide book Montague had picturesque views and natural hot springs, it sounded like a perfect one night detour. The drive up to Montagu was a bit lengthy, around 3.5 hours, however it was one of the most beautiful drives of the trip and well worth the winding roads and mountain passes. By the time we arrived in Montagu the sun was setting so we quickly checked into our hostel which was also a pecan farm. The rooms were adorable and the land was beautiful. The owner whose name has now escaped me, was a nice Afrikaans woman who suggested we get dinner in town. We headed into town and went to a small pub for a quick bite. I think perhaps the strangest sensation of this detour was for the first time since being in South Africa, we were in a seemingly predominantly white town. We asked the owner of the restaurant if it was safe to go to the natural springs after dark, something we as three young women traveling in a foreign country learned to ask, and her response suggested that we were crazy to think it wouldn't be safe. After a quick change into bathing suits at the hostel we headed out to find our 'natural' spring pools. In general when people say 'natural spring pools' I think of rocks and springs coming directly from the ground, this was far from the case. We arrived at what appeared to be a resort, paid the entrance fee to get in and spent a few moment searching for the spring pools, we had found two regular swimming pools but no natural springs. Come to find out our 3.5 hour detour for natural springs was all for a trip to a normal swimming pool filled with warm spring water. The pool was also filled with chubby white men speaking Afrikaans. Luckily there was a poolside bar where glasses of red wine quickly eased any frustrations we had at the situation. All in the all the pools were lovely and we floated around for an hour or so before heading back to the pecan farm. In the morning we were awoken bright and early by the resident rooster and when I left the room I ran into a number of chickens, peacocks and a couple of adorable farm dogs. We checked out but not before getting a bag full of free pecans.

Next up on our stop was Hermanus, a small coastal town that is known to have the best whale watching in all of Africa. The drive was fairly short and once we arrived the weather was drizzly and cool reminding me of a afternoon at the Oregon coast. Whale migration season hadn't yet started so we didn't end up spotting any whales, but did enjoy the beautiful views and saw what I deemed an 'ocean gopher'. Seeing as our road trip was coming to an end we took our morning in Hermanus as being the perfect opportunity to go souvenir shopping before we got to Cape Town and things would be a bit pricier. After getting our fill of souvenirs we decided to give up on the whale search and head to the wine portion of our trip, Franschhoek.

The drive into Franschhoek was incredible, through a small mountain pass that gave us views that literally took my breath away, I wish we had had the opportunity to stop to take photos. Once we arrived in the town we drove down the main road seeing the dozens of restaurants, touristy shops and vineyards along the way until we ended up at the hotel we would be staying at, Fransvliet. After some initially issues, we finally got checked in and enter perhaps the most beautiful hotel room I've ever stayed in, the floors were heated (and so were the towel racks) there was a fireplace in the room and a massive tub, after staying in some cold and not so cozy hostels this was a welcome change of pace. We quickly decided that this portion of the trip would be our opportunity to splurge a bit. We got changed and headed to a French restaurant that was suggested by Victor, the man that runs the hotel. Once we arrived at the restaurant we were seated back by the kitchen, where a glass window allowed us to watch the chefs in action, which was incredible. This was one of those experiences where we kept having to remind ourselves that this wasn't real life, that this wasn't going to happen back in New York, the food was artistic, delicious and beautiful. Stuffed from all the food and wine we went back to the hotel and crashed for the evening. In the morning we had a lovely breakfast at Fransvliet and then decided that maybe instead of wine tasting, we would go to a spa instead (like I mentioned earlier, this was our splurge weekend). We headed to this beautiful spa and had massages and facials. I think we were all extremely content at this point and thought that maybe we could just stay in Franschhoek for the next two months. After a rough day at the spa we had dinner at a small italian restaurant that, to be honest, no matter how good it was it wouldn't come close to comparing to the meal we had the night before. The next morning we woke up preparing to head to Cape Town and realized that we were in a wine valley and had yet to stop and actually taste wine at a vineyard, so after we checked out and left we headed into Stellenbosch and stopped at a vineyard where we stocked up on a number of bottles of wine and decided to start the real part of our adventure, and headed into Cape Town.

On our way into the city the nerves started picking up, we were about to arrive in what would be our home for the next two months. I was excited and anxious to get to the house and finally unpack our bags, relax and start to explore Cape Town. We entered in the address that our Professor had given us into our trusty GPS and headed to Ivy Road. We were pretty far on the outskirts of town and pulled up to a nice two story house. The gate was open so we parked the car in the driveway and got out, as Colleen and Tracie headed for the door I noticed the second car parked in the driveway and all the clothes hanging on the line...something seemed strange. Having no doubts that this was definitely our house Colleen opened the door and said 'hello', suddenly a small black boy and his older sister came running down the stairs and stopped, startled by the five foot tall blonde who had just entered their home. Quickly realizing we had made some sort of mistake Colleen, shut the door and we got back into the car. As we sat in the driveway sort of confused about what just happened, we started laughing hysterically at the fact that we just barged into some random family's home and when we realized we were wrong, we didn't even apologize, we just shut the door and left, no explanation or anything. A good note to start our time in Cape Town on. Realizing that we must have just entered in the wrong address we put in Ivy Street into our GPS and headed even further out of town. As we started driving through townships I started getting concerned, Tracie seemed to think that these neighborhoods looked right, but the glances I was getting from Colleen in the front seat suggested to me that she also was worried. We soon pulled up to 12 Ivy Street in what we would later realize was the extremely dangerous township of Philippi. As we approached the gate a dog started barking and we decided, you know what I can't imagine the house came with a dog. Feeling like we were never going to find our house and realizing that we probably shouldn't be in this neighborhood we got back into the car and finally got a hold of our professor who was only really able to tell us that our house was tan. Helpful. We tried entering the address in the GPS again and were taken through the heart of Philippi which was startling and intense to say the least. Finally on the third try we were successful in finding 12 Ivy Road and were able to drop off our bags and settle in, excited to finally be 'home', nervous to start the next two months and a bit sad that our adventure of road tripping throughout South Africa had come to an end.