Wine, wine, wine and even more alcohol ...

Hey girls and guys at cold home and any reader on this world!

Before you read anything, i´ve made a way for free internet in the hostel :D So don´t mix up the times i´m speaking about now. It´s tuesday evening, not wednesday morning :D (even i thought of posting it, tommorow)

My second Update i already wrote last evening at the hostel after drinking some bears, so don´t search for all my faults. I know i did a lot :D
When you read this maybe i´ve been murderd in the townbship i get to today. Its calles Lugan! 350.000 people living in those shrinks you know from colered tv, i think that will be an impression for live. I think i will take some pictures to get you kind of thinking about it.
Or maybe, if you reading this in late afternoon, i will be on tour to my next hostel in cap alghuas, which is the most southern part of south africa. Not Cape Hope like many people think (maybe i´ve already told you :))! Enough about my plans for today, lets talk about the past days!

If you have checked out my last post in this blog carefully, you maybe realize, that i´ve disorder my plans a little bit. On Monday we did our wine tour like we´ve planed, we that were Owen (Aussie), Riff (American), ??? (a girl from Canada), Marion and me, but fully on our own. We got to Stellenbosch, one of three villages in the big Winery Area in Western Cape. We planned to rent some bikes in the centre of Stellenbosch (which is the centre of the wine route too) to get to the winerys and do some wine tastings. But all bikes were booked out. But the guy in the tourist information got a really lucky information for us. He told us to get a special winery, Delvere, where we got 5 MTBs. The special thing about this winery was, that they built a trial for biking the really huge winery along all those winehills (Check out the pictures). There was also a trial section through the woods and at the and an impressive downhill section. Getting through all the hills was very hard, but everyone reached the destination, the first winetasting at the start of our tour. It took us almost 2 hours to get through the hills (and dirt). Our first wine tasting was really good, cause it was a reseller of all wines around Stellenbosch, so they got all the best wines from there. A winetasting here is really cheap; you can try from 4 to 6 wines for only 10 to 20 Rand (approx. 1€ to 2€). So you can get drunk for nothing :D. Most of the wines are red ones, but i´ve got only white ones for me (which are most times sweeter then the red ones), but unfortunately no rosés. After that we got to lunch, and again we were really lucky. There was a little "restaurant" (which was more like an old building with nothing in it), where an old south african native women did all her cooking on her own, Little old mamas kitchen. We took 4 different meals (quite all the meals on the card :D) and switched it to taste everything we ordered. It was that delicious, you can´t imagine. And as you know, i´ve got a good taste :)) Don´t laugh i really i have! It was a pie with chicken in it, a special za lasagne, a duck pie and beef mixed up with curry and mint ;) For dessert we had a cheese cake, a chocolate cake and an apple tart. OMG, remembering all things things gets me hungry instantly. After that, we got to the Laibach winery, a winery founded by a german family, which was very impressive to me, cause we sold those wines in our LIDL-Stores on christmas (for about 20€). The landscape around those winery got me thinking about staying here for years, when i get older.We will see :D. Our last tasting was on an english winery, very impressing buildings, but actually no wines for me. So we got back to our starting point, in the car, driving to Paarl (Paarl Pinotage, maybe the best known wine from ZA), looking for another tasting and eating some goatcheese, but it was allready closed, damn. On the night, we got out for a stand-up comedy near the hostel, very funny, but hard to understand. But after to much beer i fall asleap very good :D

On Tuesday as you know, i planned to go to the townships, but it was Marions last day in ZA, and she hasn´t been on table mountain. And because of the good wheather (no clouds, about 34°C in the shadow), we got up there, with Jose Maria (a tourist guide from Spain, a basqué native, working in Mallorca :D). Again an amazing tour! The sight was incredible. We were hiking on the mountain about 2hrs. After i got back to the hostel, i decided to end the day on the beach, because it was to hot to do anything. It was a bit windy, and the atlantic ocean really cold, but i had a nice time there. It was really funny, because there where some germans lying next to me. Two girls and later a guy who talked all the time about how much the earn and spent the last nights. I suppose they were from munich, haha. But it was getting better though. On every beach in ZA, their are some balck guys who wanna sell you some icecream, coke or water for refreshing (you may rememeber Mallorca, but here, there is asking you one of this guys maybe after 5 minutes to buy anything. So the little german group asked for some beers, and of course the guy wanted sell them one. They ordered six bottles of Savannah Dry (a cidre) that can be bought everywhere, for about 5-6 Rand. On the beach i would pay about 20R maximum (cause i don´t want to transfer it into Euro everytime, i tell you the you now the approx. transfer rate, which is about 1 to 10). Now the funny part. The guy came back after about 20 minutes wiht a horrible story, telling those arrogant tourists, that there wasn´t any savannah at camps beach anywhere (you have to know, that there is on bar and store after another), so he had to tell a guy, to buy it in sea point, which is quite far away. So they have to pay 250R for the driver (who was standing next to him) and about 360 R for the beers (60R for a bottle, for those of you who can`t count :D). Of course the got into arguing, about how expensive this is, but after a while they really paid the ammount of 600R. OMG! I mean, how stupid can a tourist be, it wouldn´t describe them correctly. How got the even out of their homes with getting injuried. They allready reached ZA. Man, i laughed my ass off (on my mind), this could only happen to those damn munich schickerians (don´t know how to say this better in english :D). But they must feel like staying at home, even if its a little warmer then there.

Afterwards i got back to the hostel, attending a street parade with over 25k people, suited in funny clothings. It was a charity run, but actually it was more than drinking on the streets then running. Btw., drinking on the streets is prohibited everywhere in ZA. Be carefully about that, i´ve you plan a stay in za ;) If you want do so, you have to go to the townships, where it is allowed. A little bit contraproductive as i think, because the biggest problem in the townships is drinking. I´m glad to go there on wednesday with a social worker from belgium, Shelly who is also staying in the hostel. Lets see what is expecting me tommorow. Probably i can visit Robben Island, the former prison Nelson Mandela was sent to, during the time of Apartheid. I don´t want to leave this town either, but i´ve got to move on, cause there is so much to see and visit in za. I hope to tell you soon, where it got me on my route to Jo´berg (nobody says Johannesburg). Maybe my next posting will be a little bit more critical, cause there are some things, i complain about now already. So don´t forget i´m remembering all of you.

Your plesant, Sven. (Uggh, that was formely, don´t take it serious :D)


PS: I know this isn´t the best way (who cares after 3 months), but here is my new south-african cell phone number 0799-417493 (Vodacom=Vodafone)! Please take care of it and don´t use it to often :D