Cape Town: Part II

---I did quite a bit of traveling around the Cape Peninsula and the Western Cape (wine country) over the last couple of days, and on a scale of 1 to 10 I have to say it was an 11! The wild Atlantic coastal road from Cape Town to the Cape of Good Hope where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic in a turbulent display of surf and currents is simply breathtaking. When you drive out from Cape Town along the coastal route you go past some of of the most exclusive small towns dotting the coast. Bantry Bay and Clifton look like they belong along the French Riviera. The road is not for the faint of heart and makes the roads around Monaco and the Italian/French border look like child's play, but the experience is worth the drive. Along the coast you find gorgeous white sandy beaches, sheer cliff drops, as well as small fishing towns (e.g. Hout Bay Valley and Fish Hoek). Past Hout Bay Valley is Chapman's Peak Drive, one of the most famous drives in South Africa. If you thought that the drive was precarious until this point you haven't seen anything yet babe! You need major cojones to do this drive, but once again it's worth the sense of vertigo! After driving along Chapman's Peak for about 5 kilometers you come upon Mystic Cliffs. This place looks like something out of a Hollywood film. Flowing white sandy beaches, aquamarine water, white surf, and people on horses riding across the beach. On a slightly grimmer note I discovered that this beach also harbors some nasty sharks and that an old woman who had been swimming at the same beach every morning for the last 33 years had become a tasty snack for a great white shark only two weeks prior to my visit. Yuk. Finally after about a 50 kilometer drive you arrive at Cape Point National Reserve and reach the famous Cape of Good Hope. Standing there at the point where Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic I have to say was one of the highpoints of my life. As I stared across the Indian Ocean side I realized that scarcely two years ago I had been on the other end of the Indian Ocean in Perth, Australia, staring across the water.
---Aside from my trekking around the Cape Peninsula I also managed to get out and see the Wine Country along Franshoek, Stellenbosch, and Paarl. I stopped at three major wineries. The wines were delicious but I confess they didn't impress me as much as other new world wines that I've tasted from Argentina, Chile, or Australia. Interestingly enough I met up with several characters along the way: a US army military intelligence officer who just finished his tour in Iraq (at first he lied to me and said he was a student from Canada until he realized I was from the states and worked for the government), an older slightly tipsy couple from Sydney, and a very straight, blonde,and Scandinavian couple from Finland, and a very forthright lesbian from France (within 2 minutes she informed me of her sexual preference, like I care!).
---Out of the three towns I preferred Stellenbosch the most (the Afrikaner University of Stellenbosch is located there). It was a town full of old, leafy oak trees, cobbled streets, and whitewashed old Dutch style homes. The town also had a great share of cafes and restaurants. It was here I tasted my first braai or barbecued meat Afrikaner-style. Next to Argentina South Africa is the land of meat consumption. Anything on four hooves is considered dinner. For some reason they also eat a lot of ostrich down here. It definetly gives a whole new meaning to "it tastes just like chicken"!
---On a final, if depressing note, to this posting I had a rather informative and unpleasant encounter with an old Afrikaner this morning. To say the man was racist would be an understatement, but I found it a good opportunity to understand his point of view and get some more insight into the mindset of the old Apartheid regime in South Africa. His views were shocking and I found myself arguing with him over every single social, historical, and political comment he made. I think he was rather taken aback by my arguments, but I restrained myself from exploding at several points because I was fascinated by how someone could hold such a negative and depressing, not to mention fearful view of life. At the end of the conversation I just felt bad that he had wasted so much of his energy and life by living in fear of "the other".
---Well, Tomorrow I'm off to Lesotho and my HIV/AIDS project. It will be a wakeup call after these last few days of first-world luxury in the Western Cape. Hasta luego.