Traveling Home

On Wednesday morning, we began the long trip home with a final drive in the rental car to the airport.  Cheryl was glad to relinquish her other side of the road driving duties.

We took a small jet to Johannesburg, and then had a 3 hour layover until we would get on our next flight.  It took over an hour to get our boarding passes (we had to show our proof of covid testing), and then went through two more layers of security before we could go to our gate, with about a half hour to spare.  This is a sprawling airport, and we pretty much traversed the length of it.  Exhausting.

Our flight was to JFK by way of Zurich on Swiss Air, leaving at around 8pm Wednesday to land after 6am on Thursday in Zurich, with a 9am flight to the US. A three hour layover in Zurich.

Unfortunately, there was a jet fuel shortage in Johannesburg because of the flooding in Durban earlier in the month. It was reported that they couldn't fully refuel long haul flights for the trip back. This was not a situation that would be resolved for weeks. United canceled one of their flights from Newark for that very reason, so we were wondering how Swiss would handle the situation.

The solution for Swiss, and for other airlines, was to fly to another nearby airport to fully fuel and then go on to the destination.  We ended up diverting to Namibia, landing and waiting for the one fuel truck there to fill us up, and then fly to Zurich.  A long flight got even longer.

We were pretty happy to be over the Alps:

The refueling diversion in Namibia narrowed the Zurich layover considerably, but with Swiss efficiency, we moved right through the terminal and made our flight to JFK, getting aboard more than 19 hours after we boarded our first flight in Cape Town.

Seven hours later, we were over the Massachusetts coast,

and over Long Island soon after that 

We landed before noon, got through the airport rather quickly, and made our way by public transit back to New Haven by 4:30.

With Remy’s help, home by 5pm, about 36 hours after we left Stellenbosch. Tired but happy.

Mastodon

A Day on the Wine Tram

On Tuesday, after an early stop to get Covid tested for our flight home, we collected Kelly and got an Uber to nearby Franschoek for the highly regarded Wine Tram.

The setup for this wine lover's day out is that buses and a tram take you around to various wineries for visits, tastings, and lunch.  Franschoek is a posh and beautiful little town, and is basically all wineries.  We'd wanted to do the wine tram since we got there but never got around to making the arrangements.  On this, our last day, we navigated the complicated schedule and made a plan.

We stopped at four wineries on our tour.  Each one had breathtaking vistas.

We sampled a lot of wine.

Along the way, I finally sampled biltong.  (Basically very high quality beef jerky.)

It was a great way to spend our last full day in Stellenbosch.

When the day was done, Cheryl focused on last minute shopping.  Her favorite shop was this lady's.  She sold African silk products in a small shop right next to our hotel in Stellenbosch, and would spend her days spinning and weaving the silk on the sidewalk outside. 

This was our last night in Stellenbosch.  It was a clear, starry night.  This was the view outside our room.

We will miss this place.

Back to Stellenbosch

On Monday morning, we rose early and got on the road for the 5 hour ride back to Stellenbosch.  While there was some awareness of the route because we'd done it before, that didn't take away from the tediousness of it.  It was great weather and we stopped halfway for a great bakery in Riviersonderend, which helped a little bit.

We got back to our home away from home, the Stellenbosch Hotel, by early afternoon.  The hotel and the surrounding neighborhood had become familiar and comfortable.  I don't know if I mentioned how the area really rocks with sidewalk activity all day and into the night.  You really don't need to be anywhere else.

Kelly had schoolwork to do.  We went shopping and wandered around beautiful Stellenbosch.  This is their law school.

This was a big night in town.  The national college rugby championship (a very big sport here) was being held in the University's stadium because the Stellenbosch Matties were playing the University of Pretoria Tuks for the title. Tickets had sold out right away, so we had no chance of attending in person.  When we picked up Kelly for dinner we saw mobs of students proceeding en masse for the field, much like an American football tailgate, with lots of beer, posters and outfits.

We settled for having dinner at our favorite sidewalk restaurant, Java, which is adjacent to our hotel.

There were no seats available to watch the game on TV inside so we sat outside and watched through the window while we ate our dinner.  It was an exciting game, and Stellenbosch lead for 78 of the 80 minutes of regulation.  The win looked like it was in the bag when one Stelle player literally booted the ball to a Tuks player, who picked up the ball and took off down the field, lateraling to another just short of the goal, and the other player ran it in.

Devastating.  Not enough time to recover, and the visitors won the national trophy.  A little bit of a damper on our last dinner with Kelly, but we still had one more day together, and we had a big plan--to do the Franschhoek Wine Tram.

Back to Mossel Bay

On Sunday, the cold front was still in play and we decided our best shot at sunny weather was to go East, back to Mossel Bay. We got on the road and sure enough, we got some sun halfway there.

This time we decided to stay at a different location to get an early start for Stellenbosch the following day.  We stayed at a resort hotel on Diaz Beach on the opposite side of town from the area we were in the last time.

We lucked out with a big long empty beach with big waves.

Hardly anybody on the beach, but those that were were into surfing or beachcombing.

We were given a 10th floor room with incredible views.

Even the bathroom.

It's the equivalent of Halloween week here in the Southern Hemisphere.  The water was too cold, so rather than swim in the Indian Ocean, we settled for wading.  

Cheryl found her happy place picking up shells on the beach.

We hung out at a beach bar as the sun went down.  

After a nice dinner, we went to sleep to the sound of crashing waves on this, our last night on the Indian Ocean.

Cloudy times in Knysna

On Wednesday while in Mossel Bay we made a plan for the rest of our time on the Garden Route.  The weather reports were not promising, as a cold front was moving in.  We had been very fortunate in our weather on this trip--some rain, some wind, but nothing that prevented us from doing anything important.  But this was going to really gonna knock out any plans for a lazy, full on, sitting on the beach in the day on the Indian Ocean.

On Thursday we drove to Knysna, a highly regarded resort town in the heart of the Garden Route.  Knysna is town with a large beautiful lagoon and the entry point to the Indian Ocean is a relatively small opening matched by high, rounded rock faces on ether side, called the Knysna Heads.  There is a treacherous bar just outside the opening making navigation through challenging at best.  The British Royal Navy once deemed it the most dangerous harbor entrance in the world.

We booked 3 nights in a high end hotel on the waterfront, the Protea Marriott.  The plan was that if we were stuck in our room it would be a nice room.  It was a good choice.  Located right in the heart of the waterfront, it was walking distance to shops and restaurants, had a great breakfast, and was quite comfortable.

Sure enough, the clouds rolled in as we rolled into town, and the temperature dropped.  We were hopeful we'd catch the last of the sun in a sunset cruise on the lagoon, since no sun was predicted for the rest of our time there.  It was not to be.  We took the tour boat out and we crept along to the harbor entrance, but no sun was seen.  And it got cold.  But we did manage to have some fun drinks and heard all about the history of the lagoon.

Loadshedding was happening all over the country this week due to problems with power generation.  As I have noted, it didn't seem to slow anybody down.  Our fancy hotel had a generator that kept everything going including TV and WiFi.  But the lights were out all over, and when we ventured out to find dinner, I almost fell into the canal.  But no worries.  We had another tremendous dinner by candlelight.

On Friday we had another cool, dark damp day.  We took it easy and walked into town and out to Thiessen Island, an local enclave for the rich.  We shopped.  We had another tremendous dinner.  More loadshedding took place, but this was the last of it.

On Saturday, there was no change in the weather.  We drove out to Knysna Heads and had lunch at the East End Cafe, which sits at the entrance to the harbor. 

After lunch, we explored the area, and it was as rough there as advertised.

We saw plenty of tour boats go out through the harbor opening, only to look things over and turn around.

It wasn't what we expected from our Garden Route adventure, but it ended up being a nice finish to our time in Knysna.  Later on, we had another great dinner on the waterfront, and called it a night. 

Hermanus and Mossel Bay

On Tuesday it was back to school for Kelly and on the road for us.  We had an unstructured additional week to play in South Africa, and hadn't really made up a plan until we worked something out over the weekend.

I was looking for a vacation within a vacation--something like sitting at a oceanside bar all day, getting to know the locals, eating whatever the fishermen bring in each day.  Langebaan and Paternoster, on the west coast, north of Cape Town, sounded like that would fit the bill.  But Kelly had been up that way a couple of weeks ago, and told me that I'd get bored pretty quickly up there, that there wasn't a lot to do.

Then, of course there was the Garden Route, that everyone raves about.  Lots of beautiful towns on the Indian Ocean, massive beaches.  What they don't mention is that it's 4-5 hours of driving to get there.

Well, anyway, we opted for a short trip to Hermanus while we worked it out.

Hermanus is about 1 1/2 hours out of Stellenbosch, and turned out to be a great place to spend a day and a night.  It's claim to fame is that you can whale watch from the shore.  Unfortunately it's not the right time of year for passing cetaceans, but it was almost 90 degrees and sunny when we arrived so we had a great time exploring the local cliff walk.  

We stayed at the venerable Windsor Hotel, which sits right on the waterfront, and hung out in the little village, had local seafood, and actually bought local stuff to bring home.

As good as Hermanus is, it didn't rate more than one day, so we decided to venture forth to the first real town on the Garden Route, Mossel Bay.  The road to Mossel Bay, N2, is long and rolling through farm country.  If the Cape Town area looks like Southern California, this area looks like Iowa.  

Cheryl was a champ driving the 4+ hours, but trying to keep up with the local driving customs was a little taxing.  Most of the highway was two lanes, no divider, and the custom is to pull way over to allow cars to pass, or to avoid oncoming cars passing on the other side.  Every kind of vehicle, from little mini cars to tandem tractor trailers.  Occasionally a farm tractor would enter the traffic. It was something else.

Mossel Bay is a mixed bag.  It has an enormous refinery outside of town.  It's clearly a working waterfront community with a real harbor with ships coming in and out.  It also has a lovely waterfront.  It is our first real interaction with the Indian Ocean.

By chance we booked ourselves at the Point Village Hotel for a balcony room with a view of the ocean for $66 a night.  

This is the view from our room.

The Point is the end of a waterfront peninsula in town, beautiful and kinda scruffy all at the same time.  There's a campground across the street, and plenty of people swimming at the beach next door. 

The local zipline (which Kelly rode a few weeks ago) is here, and lots of little tidal pools.  

There are a couple of local waterfront restaurants, in which we enjoyed another dinner at sunset.

During the day we took a walk into the center of town, which was somewhat unremarkable, but has something called the postal tree.  In centuries past, Portuguese mariners would leave their mail at the tree as they passed through around the end of Africa, either going East or West.  Mariners going in the opposite direction would pick up the mail and bring it back the other way.  

It still is used as a postal box, and Cheryl sent out a postcard from there.

There is one local activity we didn't take part in:

Once again, we felt we'd seen most of what we'd see in the town.  Having made it this far on the Garden Route, we made a plan to push on to Knysha, about 1 1/2 hours away, and stay for 3 days, and then work our way back to Stellenbosch, for a little Kelly time before we went home.