Back to Cape Town

We came back to Cape Town a few days ago after a truly remarkable time in Stellenbosch. We were sad to leave and even tried to extend for two more days, but they were sold out and there was no room at the inn.  I must say however that living here at the Westin is not a hardship. Our room has a view of the old seaport with Robben Island* in the background, and every morning it is a pleasure to see what is going on outside our windows.  

* the prison where Nelson Mandela and other notables were held for decades

Yesterday we hired a driver and car and drove all over the place. From here to the Cape of Good Hope via the old Good Hope Road, which winds and zigzags over the mountain to get to the shore. We stopped first to see the penguins and I thought at one point that Cindy was going to throw a haymaker at a couple of Chinese women who were trying to push her out of the way to get shots of the penguins.  My money was on Cindy, but she simply glared at them and said in perfect English, I was here first so move on. We related this story to our driver, a native Cape Townian who does lots of tours and he just went on and on about how the Chinese are the rudest, cheapest, nastiest travelers in the world.  He simply won't deal with them any more since it is always so unpleasant. The drive to the marker for the Cape of Good Hope takes you through a lovely state park filled with glorious flowers which are all in bloom. We thought we were looking at sheep grazing but it turned out to be huge clumps of white flowers on stalks that were about two feet tall. The Protea, the national flower, was in full bloom everywhere you looked and in such a variety of colors as to take your breath away.  There were baboons, which we didn't see, ostriches, which we did see, and lots of great looking birds.

The line to take a picture at the Cape marker was rather long due to the fact that there was a group of Chinese who had to take twenty pictures each of the marker - they were lined up and one would pose while her friends took photos, and then another would pose while his friends took photos, and oh dear it was never going to stop. We ended up just taking a picture of the marker between Chinese "models" - there went our Christmas card with the Cape of Good Hope in the background!  The ocean there is just vast and blue and I could just picture my dad sailing around the Cape on his small destroyer escort in WWII. The first time I ever heard about Cape Town was when my dad would 'invite' my sister and me to sit with him on Sundays to watch Victory at Sea. One episode - he was in all of them or so we thought - was about Cape Town and he told us how when they were there for re-provisioning stops before the trip back to Recife, he had his first fresh pineapple. Strangely enough, one night in the Club Lounge Cindy and I were talking to a couple and when I asked what he did, he said he grew pineapples in Durban and his family had been growing pineapples for eight generations and they supplied lots of fruit to the US Navy during the war. That was really cool!

Last night we dined at a restaurant that had a two man band, one on Marimba and the other on piano. It was great fun to listen to the African music but all too soon they switched to old standards.  The food there - and everywhere in South Africa - has been uniformly superior.  Everything is fresh and tasty and prepared extremely well. We have eaten several species of African animals - Springbok, Impala and Ostrich - but hope to see more on the hoof when we get to the safari on Monday.  More later, check Facebook for photos.  Wm

Stellenbosch

Sunday, Stellenbosch South Africa

We are at peace!  We have not felt this tranquil, energized or happy as we have for the past three days here in the middle of the wine country of South Africa.  We booked into a wine farm, what they call wineries here, for four days to break up our time in Cape Town. Our hotel is on the Spier Wine Farm and has 135 rooms on a 1200 acre estate that is one of the most picturesque places we have ever seen. It, like Cape Town 40 Km to the west, is surrounded by tall craggy mountains on three sides, with vineyards climbing the mountains like ivy on a tree. Out room is just a simple but elegant expression of the subdued luxury that exudes from every pore of this facility.  It has a gas fireplace (we haven't needed it) - and for that matter we haven't needed the AC either because we have fabulous cross-ventilation.

This farm began in 1692 and has been in continuous operation since then, with the same family owning it for the past hundred or so years. It is a Green facility and as such the focus is on sustainability which normally doesn't float my boat, but here you can see what can really happens if everyone does what should be done. All of the water used in the hotel is completely recycled, processed and used to irrigate all the gardens and grounds. All the food waste is processed to provide food for the goats, chickens, boars, horses, and cows as well as composting for the gardens. All the lighting fixtures - artsy overheads - are made from old plastic milk containers. I mention all of this just to point out the level of detail that goes into the thinking behind this hotel. 

The grounds are filled with native flowers, plants and trees, most of which are flowering now since it is late spring. There is a river that flows through the center of the estate and it ranges from raging near the hills to mellow and meandering as the terrain levels out and widens. Cindy has been beside herself with joy since she has finally been able to run outside, having been condemned to the torture chambers in the hotels in Doha and Cape Town. She comes home from long runs with a grin on her face which reflects her thrill at running through fields filled with wild flowers and tall fragrant trees. Yesterday we had our first rain in the morning but it didn't stop her from running or me from a long walk; in fact it was so refreshing that we hoped it would last all day, but by noon it was bright and sunny allowing us to walk the grounds and take a lot of photos.

The food and wine here are fantastic. The two major restaurants are farm to table, using ingredients from the estate to create lots of interesting combinations of creative and sustainable dishes.  The wines are very interesting and varied, with lots of variety. The whites are generally too alcoholic for my taste with most of them ranging from 13 to 14.5 percent. They tell me that the weather here has been getting hotter over the past decade and thus the wines have been getting more alcoholic.  They do have a lovely Sav Blanc that is about 12.5 and thus at the top of my range and the new 2016 is very drinkable.  What is fantastic are the sparkling wines, which are only about 12%. One is a very marvelous Champagne-like blend and the other a pink sparkler that is about 11.5% and offers a refreshing change of pace. The prices here are marvelous, even though they have us over a wine barrel in that you can't go anywhere else. Most of the wines are about $2.00 per generous glass and the sparklers are only about $2.25. The per bottle prices are equally amazing with a bottle of of the Sav Blanc costing only $5 per bottle!! Needless to say, we have not gone too long being thirsty.

Today we inquired as to how we might get into Stellenbosch to walk around the town. At first the tour director told us it would be 200 Rand, about $15 dollars, to take a car the 12 km to town. That sounded like a rip-off to us so we consulted Uber and got there and back for less than half, including a tip. The drivers were just delightful and like everyone else we have met, proud of their country and their city. Stellenbosch is lovely and larger than we thought with lots of old colonial Dutch buildings and a very grand University, the oldest in South Africa.  It is a center for the wine industry and as such money has been spent to make it very attractive and livable. We wandered for a few hours and stopped for a light lunch and a glass of a different type of sparkling wine. We ended with an espresso at another venue and were surprised and delighted that the coffee was served with homemade truffles, which were rich and tasty. The coffee in South Africa is fantastic, as good as what we would expect in Italy, and every place we have been seems to know how to make the very best espresso and other espresso drinks. Again the prices here are remarkable, due in part to the dollar being so strong, and espressos cost only a tad more than a dollar. 

Cape Town

Our flight from Doha to Johannesburg was on time and comfortable.  Joburg airport is congested and a tad disorganized, forcing everyone to claim luggage and go through immigration and security and then go through security yet again after transferring to the domestic terminal. We had plenty of time but it felt rather fragmented after the first part of the travel. Our flight to Cape Town was about two hours and the two flight attendants in our cabin were simply wonderful. Both were so proud of their country and especially the wines, which flowed liberally since they wanted everyone to have a wine tasting experience.  Lots of fun and we were soon in Cape Town.  It was dark when we arrived and the drive from the airport didn't give us much to go on in terms of where we were and where we were going.

In the morning as we opened the windows in our room at the Westin, we were - as the Aussies say - gobsmacked.  On one side was the lovely harbor and on the other was Table Mountain with clouds flowing over the mountain like water over Victoria Falls. I was out of the building in a flash and walking around the harbor craning my neck to take in all of the views, which were spectacular. We took the hop-on/hop-off bus and got a great overview of the city, which is as complex as it is beautiful. We got to the top of Table Mountain where you can climb up the mountain or take the cable car, however it was very windy and the mountain was completely covered with clouds so they had closed the cable car. It didn't matter to us since the views from the base of the mountain were glorious. The city sits in a bowl with mountains on three sides and it seems to flow right into the South Atlantic.  Imagine our surprise though when we looked at a map and realized that our view of the Atlantic was to the north!  Cape Town sits on a peninsula that juts west into the ocean and the city actually faces north; we thought we were looking toward Antarctica. 

Our hotel offers spectacular views from the club lounge, which also serves as their top restaurant at night. There is always something new to see since the city is always changing, and the cloud cover is particularly amazing the way it swirls over the mountain and around the town and then gives way to absolutely clear skies.  The harbor traffic is fun to watch and the sunsets are energizing.

We're on our way to a "wine farm" aka vineyard in Stellenbosch for a few days - more soon.

Doha

Doha, Qatar

If you are taking a long haul flight out of Madrid, the airport is one of the most difficult to navigate that I've ever seen. The new terminal 4 (new to me, at any rate) requires you to check in in the North section and depart from the South, which is connected by a train three levels down.  From the time you clear immigration and passport control, you still have an 18-minute journey ahead of you on escalators and trains.  It is very inconvenient.  We had used all of our points to fly business class on Qatar from Madrid to Doha and continuing on to South Africa and then finally back to Dulles next month. Our plane for this flight was a relatively new Boeing 787 and the seating was 1-2-1 so Cindy and I opted for two window seats, one in front of the other. The service was very nice but certainly not on the same level of excellence as Singapore or Emirates or Etihad. They had great wines but served them all at the same temperature, warm, which was okay for the reds but horrible for the Champagnes and whites. Promises of a quick chill never panned out so we reverted to using ice in the glass, which is a real shame with such wonderful wines.

Upon arrival in Qatar at 6 pm we had the privilege of paying $35 each for a visa, and then took a taxi to our hotel, the Marriott Marquis. This is a classy hotel with great rooms and a lovely lounge for breakfast, snacks and canapés, and cocktails. We arrived in time for the last half hour of cocktails and had a drink and 'tapa' in a very, very crowded room.  We went down to look at the restaurants and decided on the Italian one called Cucina for a small meal since we had eaten well on the plane. It was a good thing we had, since the prices nearly knocked us off our chairs. I suppose we had been lulled into a false sense of modest prices during our ten days in Spain but this was a real shocker.  A glass of very average white wine cost $15, instead of the $2.25 in Spain. My small but tasty bowl of pasta aioli was $13 and Cindy's small eggplant dish was $10.  Needless to say, we were not happy that we had this to look forward to for four days!

The next morning we woke up late and when we opened the curtains we were amazed at how much Doha had grown since our last visit in 2009. There are high rise buildings everywhere and they are all interesting from an architectural point of view. However, it is still Qatar and it is grey, dusty and hot. The city seems to be in a constant state of imminent sandstorm; it just depends on the strength and direction of the wind. It is a country where you can only drink in hotels, not in any of the scores of malls with their hundreds of restaurants. It is ruled by one family and thus those members of the royal family can do what they wish whenever they wish to do it with no fear of penalty.  For instance, it appears that the royal brats like big motorcycles and on the weekends, Thursday through Sunday, they race them on the main streets of Doha from dusk 'til dawn.  We are on the 36th floor and could hear them all Thursday night. When I asked about this I was told that all of the hotels have complained about the noise, not to mention the danger, but nothing is done about it.  When the main component of the tourist industry complains about the same thing and nothing is done, it is because the authorities do not want to do anything about it!

We cannot enjoy our usual long walks here, it's too hot, dusty and dirty. Instead we go to the torture room and use the inquisition machines, me a treadmill and Cindy on the elliptical. After that we clean up for breakfast, having made the mistake of going into the club in shorts the first morning. While it appears men can wear shorts, women cannot since it offends the local Muslim men. We forgot how much we really don't like this area of the world but thought we were going to be meeting friends here and when that didn't work out, we already had plans that could not be changed. 

We have become Mall Rats in that we take several walks each day and we have seen some very interesting things in the Mall. On Thursday afternoon, the start of the Qatar weekend, the mall was filled with BLIPs (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indian, Philippine) workers who were standing in long lines at all the ATM machines to take out the money that had been deposited in their accounts by their employers.  They then headed to the large Carrefour Supermarket for their food needs.  The market is similar to the one I shopped in while living in Bahrain and I just had to take a look. I can assure you that the carrots from Australia are still the best looking in the whole world.

 At best this is a stop for us to recharge, at worst it is a place that reminds me never to come again.  We have another crack of dawn start on Sunday, having to leave the hotel at six in the morning for our 8:20 flight to Johannesburg and then connecting to Cape Town and arriving at 8 pm.  It will be a long day, but this is the trip we really planned and it will be lovely I'm sure. 

Madrid Addendum

A gentle reader reminds me that perhaps there is too much emphasis on food and wine and not enough space dedicated to culture, museums and architecture. Therefore, let me write just a little bit about some wonderful museums we discovered in Madrid and Malaga.

Both Madrid and Malaga have magnificent Museums of Jamon, in fact Madrid has four of them. These are tributes to the national delicacy of Spain, ham, not like the kind your mom might have served at Easter, but tasty, salty bits of the leg of a pig fed on acorns or corn. The hams hang like Spanish Moss on an old southern oak, drying in the open air of the museum with little cups stuck in the fleshy part of the leg to catch the fat as it drips and dries.

In Malaga, there is a quaint little museum completely devoted to the making and storing of Malaga Sweet Wine. While I'm not a fan of this, I do adore museums so we visited it during a long walk. Not far from this museum is one that is dedicated to the production of Gin, a drink quite favored in Spain. 

Seriously, we did visit some real museums, like the Temple of Debod in Madrid. This was an Egyptian temple that was built in 800 BC and stood in Aswan until they decided to flood the place. It was dismantled and shipped to Spain to honor the Spanish historian who did all the initial work on translating the text that is all over the Temple. They only allow 15 people inside at  a time in order to limit the CO2 because it is so small.  We also took the "Hop-on Hop-off" bus to all the famous places in Madrid:  the royal palace, the gardens, the cathedral, and the various plazas of Espana, Toledo and Sol. 

But museums and churches and galleries are the things you do when the weather is horrible, not when the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and the gardens filled with color, as they were during our time in Spain. We did go to the botanical gardens of Malaga and enjoyed them, but there were other gardens that were right downtown and free, so why bother?!

Malaga

Well I must have had some fun in Malaga since I didn't write a single word during our six days there. We had perfect weather for lots of walking and exploring. Our hotel, The Room Mate Valeria was a lovely spot right on the harbor and we upgraded to a larger room with a balcony overlooking the port. After our horrible room in Madrid this was a blessing, with a tiled bathroom with large towels and one of those rain showers.  The beds were very comfortable and the lighting decent. They had really fast wi-fi all over the hotel and some fifty feet surrounding it so we even had internet access in the little park, not that we needed it. The very best part of the hotel was the staff, all quite young and all professionally trained - and the smiles, well they were genuine and sincere. Breakfast was included in our upgraded price and much to our surprise, it was available until noon!  Normally we don't eat breakfast at hotels since you have to be there by 10 or 10:30 and that if far too early for us, so this was a real surprise.

We got into a routine quite naturally. I would walk the harbor for an hour each morning while Cindy ran though a park and then met me somewhere along the harbor. It is a true working harbor and during our six days there were three military ships, seven cruise ships of various sizes and two or three large ferries that went to Tunis and Morocco. The cruise ships deposited their guests for about twelve hours and they would swarm the old town. There were three 'budget' cruises - you could tell since the ships had no balconies which meant they were very old. The first day was German, the second French and the third Brits.  The Brits were the ones with third degree sunburns who sat at bars drinking beer and talking in their outdoor voices.

We had chosen Malaga because we knew it from previous visits and loved it, and our friends from San Francisco wanted to enjoy Spain with us and they agreed that Malaga was a great idea.  After our morning exercise we would meet them for breakfast and plan our day, which was always the same plan.  Walk in one direction or the other for two hours, stop for a drink and a tapa, walk another half hour and stop for a drink and a tapa, and repeat until about four when we would all head back for naps.  A few times we would meet at 7:30 on the rooftop bar to watch the sun set and then we would take off again to find an area to explore for either tapas or a sit-down dinner, which we only did twice.  It was far more fun having lots of tapas so as to sample all that Malaga has to offer.  We did go to one of our favorite restaurants from our previous two visits to Malaga, Meson Mariano, famous for its roasted goat. Señor Mariano is always there and always the life of the party, bringing us little treats to try and making sure everyone is having fun. The goat was great as were all the little and not so little sides.  It is still possible to buy bottles of excellent wine for under $12 and glasses of wine are usually about $2.25. We would take the long way home since the weather was always great and stop at one of two spots next to the hotel for a Spanish brandy before turning in at 1 or 2 am.  I must say that six days of that were plenty; too much fun can damage the health and liver.

Our friends departed for Madrid a day before we did so Cindy and I promised ourselves a very early evening, a promise that was broken.  We really had the best intentions in the world, a few tapas and then home, but the lure of lamb overcame us and we had a great dinner of roasted leg of lamb, the whole thing, and a marvelous salad of fresh greens and dried fruits and dates. We ordered one salad and one lamb, which normally would be what one person would order and we could barely finish either dish. Fortunately our train to Madrid was not until 2 pm so we were able to sleep late and still keep our morning exercise routine.  The trip back was in First Class which meant in addition to great seats they served a meal, a real Spanish meal with apprentices first then appetizer, main, dessert, coffee and brandy. Wine both still and sparkling was available throughout the luncheon and before we knew it we were in Madrid.

On our last night before heading to Qatar we met our friends again, who had been joined by another couple we'd met on a cruise a year ago so there were six of us. We had told them where to meet us, El Lacon, a favorite tapa spot for us, and they enjoyed it as much as we had hoped they would. It had to be an early night for us since we had to leave the hotel at 7:30 am   which was not the most fun thing to do, but Cindy was a trooper and we were in a taxi in a driving rain storm heading for the next leg of our adventure.

PS. If you go to Malaga, skip the On Off Bus. It is quite horrible. The Madrid bus was great in that it had lots of information on what we were seeing and on Madrid in general and it only cost 10 Euros (for seniors; otherwise 13 Euros).  The Malaga bus was 20 Euros and it offered us almost no information on the sights or on the city of Malaga. It stopped at such exciting places as the main bus terminal and the railway station. At one point they told us we would be seeing the magnificent bull ring of Malaga; however there was a line of trees in the way that prevented anyone from seeing anything.  For the 80 Euros it cost the 4 of us we should have hired a tour guide and taxi.

Madrid

Madrid, Tuesday October 4th, 14.30

Cindy and I are seated on the fast train to Malaga which departs in five minutes.  It is a very comfortable train and almost completely filled.  Who goes to Malaga on a Tuesday afternoon?

Our trip to the train station was quick and easy but earlier than we had anticipated.  Our hotel would not give us a late checkout, something I thought was automatic with my status with Best Western. (Yes, Best Western has a loyalty card just like the real hotels.)  When I asked, the clerk just shrugged and said they were full and needed everyone out of the rooms by noon. When I asked it was already 11:15 so we had to hustle to get cleaned up, packed and out in 45 minutes. Not the most pleasant way to leave Madrid. It was made a bit easier since our room was so small we hadn't really had room to unpack.

Our two days here have been fun, mostly filled with touristy things and lots of walking. We arrived at noon on Sunday having flown from Dulles to Brussels to Madrid without incident.  The streets and plazas of downtown Madrid were filled with people doing their Sunday thing, walks and long lunches.  We wandered around for a few hours to get over jet lag and work up an appetite and found a nice little spot for some wine and pulpo de Gallegos, steamed octopus in the style of Galicia which is sliced and dusted in paprika. It was just what we needed to get us back to the hotel in time for a much needed siesta. 

We slept soundly and longer that we thought, and by the time we got up it was getting dark and time to hit the streets again. Once again we wandered for a few hours and then stopped for a sherry and tapa at a really cool bar.  Tons of wood and lots of people, most of whom were locals. It was so nice we stayed for a glass of wine and another tapa and and then decided to make it an early evening and headed back towards the hotel. We got really close, but discovered we were still hungry so stopped at a bar a block from the hotel for a quick wine and tapa. There was another couple at the bar - from Australia - and we said hello.  Two hours later after nonstop talking and laughter we said goodbye. Goodness what a night!

We slept well and long and were up and out at the crack of 9:30. After our exercise we stopped for coffee and then back to clean up for the day.  We took a hop-on hop-off bus for a two hour ride around Madrid. The weather was perfect and it was fun to see the sights. We got off near the grand Park Retiro and walked another hour or so in search of a place to eat. It took us another hour to find a spot and after a very light lunch we hopped back on the bus to head home for our well-deserved siesta. 

We headed back to the first night's tapa place for a sherry. Only the Spanish really know and appreciate sherry and they always serve the Fino ice cold. We took a walk after that and then returned for some serious tapas, but this time we took a table and ordered a bottle of wine, which cost the equivalent of twelve dollars! We had the fried eggplant served with two sauces, honey and brava which is a spicy tomato based sauce. Then we had grilled mushrooms with paté. It was a hot dish and the waiter took the paté and placed it on top of the mushrooms and then cut it all up so that it looked like hash but tasted divine. We finished with grilled squid served with garlic aioli.  These were all small dishes but just enough for us.  We ended the evening at the local bar and had just one drink since our Aussie friends had departed Madrid. The owner, Sebastian, remembered us and we had a little talk and he told us we had to try a special cheese from Malaga called Payollo. We'll look for it.