Onrus +CapeTown

Three months ago, I was sitting at Bethanie Coffee Shop when I met Philip and Kato, a fiesty, middle aged couple from Hermanus, South Africa. After talking to them for about 2 hours, trading beers way too early on a Saturday morning (heh), and general smal talk, they asked what I was doing after Peace Corps.

"Well, I finish the 10th, but then I have two weeks before my friend Jill comes, "I said.

"Well, that's not going to work, " Kato remarked, eyebrows raised. "Come stay with us in Hermanus!"

As a Peace Corps volunteer, I'm quite interested in free rides, free food, and more than anything, free place to stay with truly awesome people, one of them (Philip)being a cellar master and winemaker of a local winery, Tuitskloof. So my answer was what any self respecting PCV would've said.

"Are you serious? Because I'll come."

Philip's response was, "Great, bring a friend!"

So I did. Heh. And that's how Claire and I ended up being picked up 3 months later at the Paarl bus station where we were driven into wine country, and treated to about a week's worth of sheer fanciness.

We stayed on the winery for a couple of days and were fussed over in the best possible ways, before we went to Onrus where our friends had a summer home. Wha? Claire and I kept staring at each other, like really? Is this really going on? However, both of us tried to be cool, and pretend that we, too, were fancy. I even showered on a daily basis. Big step for a dirty hippie.

Onrus is right on the beach, and Philip's friend George frequently goes diving for crayfish in the morning. Below are the photos of the crayfish his friend caught. After these photos were taken, those little guys had to walk the plank though into the bubbly boiling water of doom. Alas, alas.

George was also a winemaker, and kept giving us white wine samples of everything.

Sampling=good. Too many samples=out of control. I think white wine is just kind of delicious and tastes too sweet to actually make you drunk until bum bum bum it is TOO LATE.

After our seafood midday drunk party day, Kato and Philip took us to stay at Philip's mother's old apartment which is in a retirement village in Gordon's Bay, which was hilarious, mainly because I felt like young people invasion of the retirement home. So it was nice to have our own flat for a week, but mainly hilarious to have infiltrated the retirement community.

We stayed there a week, just did CapeTown for four days, picked up my America-pal, Jill, and am now in Stellenbosch getting ready for wine tour time. Holla! All for now, hope all's well.