Stellenbosch and Loadshedding

On Monday we finally arrived in the university town where our daughter Kelly has been for 2 months.  Along with the warmth and abundant sunshine we enjoyed on the ride from the airport, we were struck by the look and feel of the area.  These are valleys surrounded by mountains with wine estates and vineyards seemingly everywhere. It's a mix of Del Mar and the Napa Valley.

We stayed at the Stellenbosch Hotel, a very nice place in the heart of the central part of the town.  It is surrounded for 3 or 4 blocks by lots of shops and streetfront cafes and restaurants, and everywhere there are people sitting out eating and drinking wine or coffee.

This is wine country (beer presents in a limited way) and, not unlike Napa, wine country means foodie country.  It's almost impossible to get a bad meal here and every meal of the day is beautifully presented and delicious.

After all our travels it was delightful to settle down for a few days and not worry about packing and unpacking and hang around and drink some wine.

Our reunion with Kelly had to wait a day as she had honest to God schoolwork to attend to, but we did get together the next day and she showed us around the campus.

Kelly's pick for where to have dinner was actually right outside our hotel.  Virtually all the restaurants have outdoor seating on the sidewalk which makes for a really lively vibe, even on a Tuesday night.

I took a break from drinking wine.

It was about this time that Kelly informed us that she wanted to get back to her dorm in time for the loadshedding.  We didn't understand what she was talking about, and it turns out that South Africa has scheduled power blackouts, and the next one was about to happen in 20 minutes.  They actually have apps to let you know the schedule for your locality.  We got concerned and let her get her Uber home and walked back to our room.  The front desk at the hotel seemed to have no clue about this, but sure enough, the power went out at 10 and with it the lights and the wifi, and came back on at midnight.  Go figure.