Sipping and Sliding
This last weekend I had two very different, but equally fun excursions that kept me busy from sun up to sun down on both Saturday and Sunday, culminating in not being able to keep my eyes open past 9 PM on Sunday night.
The weekend started at 5:00 AM on Saturday morning with a bus to the Hottentots Holland Nature Reserve about an hour and a half outside of Cape Town for our zip lining excursion. My group was the last to go, so we had to wait in the cold reception room for a few hours while the other groups went through the safety training, got geared up in their harnesses and helmets, and made their way to the start of the slides. We passed the time trying (and mostly failing) to solve Mensa puzzles from a pack we found in the waiting room. Here's the one that had us stumped for the entire morning:
Finally it was our turn, and the 7 of us loaded into the Jeep and made our way through the reserve. It was a bumpy ride (the driver described it as an "African massage" and Zach said he felt like he was being shaken like a Ketchup bottle), but beautiful, with new and crazy fauna all around. I felt like we were driving into Jurassic Park. The huge expanse looked so natural and undisturbed by humans, and it was really a beautiful sight to take in.
We made our way to the first slide, got a quick review of the safety rules (Rule #1 - Don't put your hand on the rope in front of you) and then jumped! The guide went first, scaring us as he pretended to fall off into the canyon below, a trick he played (successfully) on us for most of the other slides.
I was 5th to go, and was able to get somewhat mentally prepared, but my stomach still jumped into my throat as I left the comfort of solid ground for the first time. I quickly got used to it though, and was able to enjoy the beautiful views below me as I whipped between the mountains. We did 11 slides in all, the longest taking us over 330 meters and the fastest speeding us up to nearly 70 kilometers per hour. It was an absolute blast!
At the end, we had a quick 1 km hike out of the mountains and back to our African massage Jeep ride, followed by a Springbok pie and cole slaw back at the reception area, and then it was time to head back to Camps Bay. After a quick shower back home, I headed back out to Woodstock, a neighborhood in Cape Town, with some friends, where we got drinks and played Jenga/played with blocks for about 2 hours at a bar, and then had some terrible food at a classic American diner (they had an Elvis impersonator and everything) called Franky's. We even made their Facebook page:
The next morning, another bus was outside waiting for us at 8 AM, this time to take us to Stellenbosch. If Cape Town is like San Francisco, Stellenbosch is like Napa - a beautiful town about 45 minutes inland filled with picturesque wineries. The Wine Flies tour would take us to 5 different wineries over the course of the day, and we sampled 5 glasses of wine at each place. The recommendation was to just taste each type and pour the rest out, but we didn't want to be wasteful, so we drank every drop. Add on the bottles we downed on the trips between wineries, and we went through a lot of grapes.
There were 9 of us from iX, most still not fully recovered from the night before, and we picked up 1 older Greek gentleman, who I was slightly concerned would not appreciate our spirit, but he was chill and seemed to enjoy the day almost as much as we did. The driver was very cool as well, and probably enjoyed laughing at us drunk Americans.
The Wine Flies tour focuses on smaller wineries, where the owners are really passionate about making high quality wine. The first stop was an estate called Mitre's Edge, where we were greeted by the owner's 5 dogs when we got off the bus. We heard a little about the history of wine in South Africa, and then got down to business with a pairing of wines and cheeses, the best obviously being the Gouda. We moved on to a beautiful outdoor place with a great view of Table Mountain in the distance, and then to another winery where we went into the cellar and tried the wine right out of the barrel using a "wine thief." We also had lunch at this place, with wine of course, and were starting to feel it by this point, half way through the tour. The next estate paired our wine with chocolate, and the final one with ducks. Yes, ducks. At 3:30 there was a stampede of several hundred ducks waddling down a path, which was one of the more bizarre things I have seen here.
The weekend started at 5:00 AM on Saturday morning with a bus to the Hottentots Holland Nature Reserve about an hour and a half outside of Cape Town for our zip lining excursion. My group was the last to go, so we had to wait in the cold reception room for a few hours while the other groups went through the safety training, got geared up in their harnesses and helmets, and made their way to the start of the slides. We passed the time trying (and mostly failing) to solve Mensa puzzles from a pack we found in the waiting room. Here's the one that had us stumped for the entire morning:
Finally it was our turn, and the 7 of us loaded into the Jeep and made our way through the reserve. It was a bumpy ride (the driver described it as an "African massage" and Zach said he felt like he was being shaken like a Ketchup bottle), but beautiful, with new and crazy fauna all around. I felt like we were driving into Jurassic Park. The huge expanse looked so natural and undisturbed by humans, and it was really a beautiful sight to take in.
We made our way to the first slide, got a quick review of the safety rules (Rule #1 - Don't put your hand on the rope in front of you) and then jumped! The guide went first, scaring us as he pretended to fall off into the canyon below, a trick he played (successfully) on us for most of the other slides.
I was 5th to go, and was able to get somewhat mentally prepared, but my stomach still jumped into my throat as I left the comfort of solid ground for the first time. I quickly got used to it though, and was able to enjoy the beautiful views below me as I whipped between the mountains. We did 11 slides in all, the longest taking us over 330 meters and the fastest speeding us up to nearly 70 kilometers per hour. It was an absolute blast!
At the end, we had a quick 1 km hike out of the mountains and back to our African massage Jeep ride, followed by a Springbok pie and cole slaw back at the reception area, and then it was time to head back to Camps Bay. After a quick shower back home, I headed back out to Woodstock, a neighborhood in Cape Town, with some friends, where we got drinks and played Jenga/played with blocks for about 2 hours at a bar, and then had some terrible food at a classic American diner (they had an Elvis impersonator and everything) called Franky's. We even made their Facebook page:
The next morning, another bus was outside waiting for us at 8 AM, this time to take us to Stellenbosch. If Cape Town is like San Francisco, Stellenbosch is like Napa - a beautiful town about 45 minutes inland filled with picturesque wineries. The Wine Flies tour would take us to 5 different wineries over the course of the day, and we sampled 5 glasses of wine at each place. The recommendation was to just taste each type and pour the rest out, but we didn't want to be wasteful, so we drank every drop. Add on the bottles we downed on the trips between wineries, and we went through a lot of grapes.
There were 9 of us from iX, most still not fully recovered from the night before, and we picked up 1 older Greek gentleman, who I was slightly concerned would not appreciate our spirit, but he was chill and seemed to enjoy the day almost as much as we did. The driver was very cool as well, and probably enjoyed laughing at us drunk Americans.
The Wine Flies tour focuses on smaller wineries, where the owners are really passionate about making high quality wine. The first stop was an estate called Mitre's Edge, where we were greeted by the owner's 5 dogs when we got off the bus. We heard a little about the history of wine in South Africa, and then got down to business with a pairing of wines and cheeses, the best obviously being the Gouda. We moved on to a beautiful outdoor place with a great view of Table Mountain in the distance, and then to another winery where we went into the cellar and tried the wine right out of the barrel using a "wine thief." We also had lunch at this place, with wine of course, and were starting to feel it by this point, half way through the tour. The next estate paired our wine with chocolate, and the final one with ducks. Yes, ducks. At 3:30 there was a stampede of several hundred ducks waddling down a path, which was one of the more bizarre things I have seen here.
I sipped and slid the weekend away, and had an amazing time at two very different, but equally fun excursions.
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