The past few days have been spent exploring beautiful sites in Cape Town and visiting some wineries. We first stopped at the Taal monument, which is symbolic of the Afrikaans language. There are actually 11 official languages in South Africa, but most people speak Afrikaans as their first language, and English as their second. The monument was huge and located right in the middle of the mountains, so we saw some more amazing views of Cape Town!
After, we stopped at the Banhoek Valley Winery in Stellenbosch that has Zyorglive wines. We tried two white wines and three red… my favorite was a red one, a Cabernet Sauvignon ☺ The vineyards here are so beautiful, I felt like we were in Napa Valley today. The vineyards are all along the mountain-side, I can only imagine how beautiful it is during harvest season! When finished tasting wine, we went to a town called Franschoek, and ate lunch at a little bistro called French Connection. I had a chicken and avocado wrap with some chips (fries!).. pretty delicious!
I had my first bartering experience today, and I have to say, I’m terrible at bartering! We went to a free market where you set your price, so I would always ask for half of what the vendor was asking for, but I felt a little uncomfortable bartering with people. I bought a few gifts for Chris and our families, I can’t wait to show them off ☺ After, we drove all around the southern peninsula, and made stops along the way to soak in the scenic views of Cape Town and the Atlantic Ocean. First we went to Signal Hill, and saw the 12 Apostles, and Signal Hill was overlooking Table Bay. We were able to see a humpback whale today in the ocean, I even saw water blow out of its blowhole! We saw a few other humpback whales on our ride to Hout Bay for lunch. We ate at “Fish on the Rocks,” which reminded me a lot of “The Shack” on Long Island, only no shell fish. I ate a popular South African fish called Hake, which is a white fish. It was fried, and of course, we had some chips with it. Our next stop was Chapmean’s Peake, which overlooked Cape Flat. We were able to see the U.S. embassy, and some of us were able to see the schools we will be working at in a couple of weeks. Unfortunately I couldn’t see mine, but I might be meeting my host mom/teacher on Sunday ☺ For dinner today we tried something called the Gatsby.. it’s a huuuuge sub filled with chicken, lettuce, and chips (aka fries).. it was intense!!
Tomorrow we’ll all be working off our subs on our hike down Table Mountain… I’m very nervous for this, those of you who know me know I don’t do too well with heights, or outdoor activities haha, so we’ll see how this goes!
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