Viva Italia, vino, y pinguinos!

In the spirit of the World Cup and our favorite team, Italia, we're writing the blog title in Italian. Now we will attempt to write in Afrikaan..."skool...accommodasie...dankie".

Alright, enough kidding around...Afrikaan is a pretty complicated language that we're not attempting to, let alone write!

Since we left Rocklands over 10 days ago, we noticed a couple of key features of South Africa - 1) It rains a LOT here, and 2) South Africans in general are impatient and often crazy drivers. Our few days around the Western Cape started off with rain - torrential downpours at time. We realized that it had rain for four straight days - no joke. The rain however did not dissuade us from exploring this impressive area.

Our first day in Hout Bay naturally started as a moderately rainy day. Ideally, we would have enjoyed a hike up and around Table Mountain, but a tragic incident the night before left us cautious of the dangerous and slippery conditions of the trails during rainy days. Given the wet weather, Doreen, our gracious hostess at the Makuti Lodge, suggested that we take the day to explore some of the cape peninsula and perhaps enjoy some wine at the local wineries. Being the “over achievers” that we are, Joe and I decided to take Doreen's advice to the next level – it's amazing what one can get done in a day!

We started Sunday off with a scenic drive through Chapman's Peak, along the rugged coastline of the western cape. The winding road overlooked picturesque scenes of small coastal towns, nestled in the mountainside of Table Mountain National Park, while the fog and dark, wispy rain clouds hung lowly over the confetti of conifers and native South African canopies. While passing through the townships, we infrequently encountered amusing, picture-worthy road signs, paving the way for a short track of jokes and off-shoots. The beautiful coastal drive landed us at the tip of the cape peninsula – Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. The Cape of Good Hope is known as the “southwestern” most part of Africa and it is incorrectly associated with the phrase “two oceans, two shores”, where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian Ocean. The correct point where these two oceans meet is at the southern most tip of Africa at Cape Agulhas. Regardless, the area around the Cape of Good Hope is stunning and a must-see for any visitor to South Africa! The sheer beauty of icy waters of the deep blue Atlantic crashing energetically onto the rocky, white coast that meets the rugged, tall cliffs overlooking the ocean, is simply breathtaking.

The tranquility of this area was soon replaced with a brief period of anxiety as we noticed that our gas tank was showing “empty”. Not sure exactly how much gas was left and how far the nearest gas station was, made for a nerve-wracking driving back up the other coast of the peninsula. Nervously, we drove into the quaint little town of Simon's Town, where we filled our gas tanks and bellies. You can't be in a coastal area this vibrant and not enjoy fish and chips! Precisely, that's what we did – a simple yet delicious lunch on the pier at the Salty Sea Dog was the perfect midday break. After lunch, there was a small window of sunshine during which we visited Boulder's Beach, a marine conservation area for African (aka “jackass”) penguins. The conservation area provides a safe nesting area on the coast for these penguins to breed and raise their young. As the rain returned, we concluded our drive along the peninsula and headed into the mountains for a warm fire and wine tasting. The Steenberg Winery, a local favorite, rapidly became our favorite winery in South Africa – their staff is incredibly helpful and the wine is delicious at a surprisingly affordable price range. Even in the mist, the grounds of the winery was lovely. We ended our evening with a yummy dinner at The Raj in the trendy Camp's Bay area.

Monday – game day – started again with rain; this time it was torrential and no signs of the sun appearing that day. As we drove along the Stellenbosch Wine Route, we secretly hoped for clear night skies during our evening Italy vs. Paraguay game. Wine tasting in Stellenbosch ended up being the perfect rainy day activity – sitting near warm fires and enjoying world-class wines made in South Africa – couldn't have asked for anything better! There are over 30 wineries in this region and it's impossible to visit all of them, especially in a day! We wrapped up our afternoon with four wineries and rushed off to meet our camp mate Helen, for an early dinner in Cape Town before our 8:30p game. This turned out to be way more hectic and tricky than we anticipated – thankfully, we had a local with us to take us to dinner and drop us off near the stadium. Yay for Helen! Our first World Cup game together was absolutely incredible and completely memorable. The game itself was rather mediocre, but the atmosphere and spirit of the world was unforgettable – driven with energy, enthusiasm, and cheer. I wanted to dress up as a crazy football fan, but buying all the accessories would be incredibly expensive, so I resorted to painting my face and dawning the Italian gear. Joe wore his jersey and waved the Italian flag proudly as Italy scored to tie the game. Returning to the car after our game was completely mayhem mixed in with order – we felt like cattle being herded – literally. Pushing and shoving our way through 63,000 people is no small feat! Long lines, buses, and a car ride later, we returned to the serenity of our quaint lodge around 12:30a. Not bad :)

Tuesday, our final day around the western cape was slow-paced as we decided to explore Cape Town itself a bit further. As usual, the day started off cloudy and drizzly, with brief pockets of sunshine. Joe and I had lunch on the Cape Town Waterfront and made our way up to Table Mountain for a cable car ride. Unfortunately, the cable car ride had just closed as we drove there, but Joe managed to get some lovely shots of the city and bay in sunset. This would have been the perfect end to the day, expect that we ran into internet troubles during our blog post – after spending 3 hours writing our post and uploading pictures, it turned out that Blogger was unable to actually make the post...so here we are, 5 days later, attempting to post again!

Our second game, Italy vs. New Zealand, in Nelspruit will be starting in 2 hours – with that, we're signing off til next time! In the meantime, enjoy our photos!

Hout Bay and the Sentinel from Chapman's Peak Drive




Cape Point


Cape of Good Hope




Penguins at Boulders Beach


Steenberg Vineyards just outside Cape Town


Stellenbosch wine country


Morgenhof Vineyards Cellar


Arun at Morgenhof Winery...yes that's SNOW up in the mountains


The game! Italy vs Paraguay, 1:1








The Cape Town Harbor


Cape Town at sunset from the flanks of Table Mountain