SA (cont)

Then out to Franschhoek (the wine lands around Cape Town)…we visited 2 wineries and had a lovely relaxing day. Vrede en Lust (peace and passion) was the first where they had a rosé wine called Jess (and a Sav Blanc called Casey’s Ridge)…other interesting wines were the Red Lady Merlot and the Boet Erasmus (my favorite). Then we went to La Motte winery where we tasted more beautiful wines also with interesting mixes of types of grapes (the Shiraz Grenache). That evening we went to a beach restaurant at Granger beach and met up with Kondwani (Malawian doctor who was at Nkhoma the first year and is now in Cape Town doing more studies).The next morning we left Cape Town headed to Bloemfontein with many different options for our day of where to go, what to see and where to stay…and then didn’t really use any of them but came up with another on the way! We drove along the coast (a beautiful drive) to Mosselbaai (Mussel Bay). It seemed that the entire world was there (Thursday was a public holiday as it was Human Rights Day so everyone made it a long weekend). It felt great to get out of the car and we walked along the shore (very rocky) and watched some surfers. We walked along to find sand but weren’t successful…so we went swimming anyway. Will didn’t swim (afraid of sharks we think) but he worked on our housing…everything was full at Mossel Baai so we continued on to Oudsthoorn which is inland and where we were headed the next day anyway.We stayed at Paradise Backpackers (which really was quite nice though I’m not sure about a paradise). Ostrich burgers for dinner and the next morning we went to Cango Wildlife Ranch where we saw lions, tigers (yes even if they don’t live in Africa normally), cheetahs, meerkats, lemurs, porcupines, crocodiles, and much more. Then we continued on our way to Bloemfontein with a stop by the side of an ostrich farm for a photo shoot. We landed in Hanover for the night which is a very small town with not much going on. We had a lovely dinner and then were invited in for coffee at the bar which turned into a dance party and the beginning of my birthday which was kicked off with a shot that had Tabasco in it!