In Vino Veritas

G'day once again.

I guess it's time to get back to the narrative, which last saw me about to head out to Stellenbosch from Cape Town.

Let's get the trivia out the way first: Stellenbosch is the second-oldest European settlement in South Africa, and is one of many monuments to the vanity of the Cape Colony's first governor, Simon van der Stel - Stellenbosch literally means "Stel's bush", and apparently half the mountains thereabouts are named for relatives of his, while South Africa's principal naval port (and 3rd oldest settlement) is Simon's Town, now almost part of the southern suburbs of Cape Town. Stellenbosch is also home to one of SA's most prestigious universities, and a bastion of the Afrikaans language - there's a fair bit of furore going on at the moment, as Stellenbosch Uni still insists that Afrikaans remain the language of tuition, while some of its students want this changed to allow instruction in English. Finally, it is one of the three towns (along with Franschoek and Paarl) which form the heart of South Africa's Winelands. So, no prizes for guessing what I was planning there...

To travel there (and indeed, for a good deal of my voyages in SA), I was to use the Baz Bus. For those not familiar with the world of Backpacker Buses, this is what is sometimes called a HOHO or JOJO bus (standing for Hop/Jump On, Hop/Jump Off, respectively). The principle is that you buy travel over a certain distance, but can spread out the time taken by jumping off at certain points to see/do things there, and then jumping back on (by booking) when another bus is due through. Some of these, such as the Kiwi Experience or Magic Bus in New Zealand, or the Moose in Canada (or indeed, the Easyrider here in Western Aus), function very much like tours, in that you get commentary from your driver, and quite often make little side-trips to places that you couldn't get to using normal public transport. The Baz doesn't do this. It's a backpacker shuttle bus, pure and simple. Its real selling point is simply that (like most such buses) it does pick-ups and drop-offs directly at the hostels, avoiding having to go into central bus stations, or to the service stations which function as bus stops for many smaller towns.

Now, I had actually used the Baz Bus last time I was in South Africa (a year and a half previously), and hence my plan was to use it for some sections of the journey, and use express buses for other parts, as the Baz has the annoying characteristic that it runs daily between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth (PE), at the western end of the route, but then somewhat less regularly than that over the remaining sectors of the routes it follows. And this, if you're trying to keep to any kind of a timeline, can be bloody frustrating. And, although I had 4 weeks this time in SA, I was under no illusions that I definitely needed to watch my progress, as there's a lot of ground to cover. Still, their setup was fine as far as I was concerned up to PE, so I had bought myself a pass covering that far. And Stellenbosch was my first stop.

This meant that my reintroduction to the Baz Bus lasted less than an hour and a half, as we drove out of Cape Town to the little town of Somerset West, where a shuttle-bus from my hostel in Stellenbosch would meet us. This, again, is a pretty common occurrence on the Baz route, as the buses tend largely to follow the routes of the highways. It was at this point that it was brought home to me just how much this was off-season in SA, as there were only 3 passengers (me included) on the bus that morning. However, one of these, a German guy called Benjy, I was to keep randomly bumping into for nearly a week afterwards - this is another thing you get used to when following the route of a HOHO bus, there are some familiar faces you will keep bumping into.

Once transferred safely to my abode for the next couple of nights, the Stumble Inn (geddit!), I booked in on a little package deal that got me two nights' accommodation and a wine tour for the bargain price of 310 Rand (which is a bit under 30 quid). I had about half an hour or so to get my stuff stowed away in my dorm, and then it was off on the wine tour. My companions on this were all off an overland truck (plus ca change, plus ca reste meme...) which had stayed in Stellenbosch the previous night, and had almost all been working as teachers and the like further up in Africa, whether in Uganda, Tanzania or wherever. So we exchanged a few stories and the like as Lukas, our driver and guide, drove us off to our first winery, Simonsig. Named after a certain Mr van der Stel. Quelle surprise!

Thus began one of my more civilised drinking sessions of my travelling times, as I sampled wines from various of the vineyards we visited. There were a grand total of 4: Simonsig, Fairview (home of the wonderfully-named Goats Do Roam wine, and a corresponding Goat Tower), Dieu Donne and Delair. The more observant among you may have noticed the French trend to some of these names - the wine industry in the Cape really only took off with an influx of Huguenot (French Protestant) refugees, when they were expelled from France. We had a wonderful lunch at Fairview, with fresh-baked bread, and it was all very convivial. I also discovered that one of my companions for the day was a natural-born techie.

Now, most of you who have known me for a while know quite how much of my time at 6th-Form and university was taken up by my work as a Stage Technician, or techie (mostly doing lighting work, but also some set-building, stage management etc). So, for me, particularly as I've been stranded away from theatrical pursuits for some time what with the claims on my time which work made, it was really rather refreshing to be able to trade tales of nightmare directors, dodgy fixes, last-night parties and the like with someone else from the same world. I really should try and get back into the theatre over here, maybe.

Anyways, the day progressed quite happily, although the inebriation rate picked up somewhat when a few of us acquired some of the local vintage to quaff whilst en route between wineries. And then, when we got back to Stellenbosch in late afternoon, we decided to go out on the town for a few more drinks. Probably not the most sensible of decisions, really. Again, things started off okay, but it all went downhill somewhat when I managed to lose most of the people I'd come with from the hostel, and I remembered that for the vast majority of the young people out that night (it IS a Uni town, after all, so there's no problem with being out on a Wednesday night) English was not the first language. Well, I couldn't really help but notice it, given that I had no idea what most of the people around me were saying. And that's not a situation I particularly like. So I ended up diverting into Steers (a homegrown South African fast-food chain, and one of the reasons why McDonalds hasn't really taken off down there) for some ill-advised beer munchies, and then calling it a night at a relatively sensible hour. Well, about 1am, which counts as relaitvely sensible in Stellenbosch...

The next day was then a pretty quiet one, as I slept in, got some shopping, went on the internet, and went back to sleep for a bit longer. And then got persuaded to go out for a few more drinks, largely by a lovely trio of Irish lasses (Elaine, Michelle and Eifa), who had persuaded Lukas and John (another of the guys who help run the hostel) to show them a night out in town. That was actually a far more pleasant night, probably at least in part because I'd had more than enough sleep, and hadn't been consuming wine all day, and I didn't manage to lose people. I had learnt my lesson. Well, one of them, anyway - can't expect me to pick up everything at once, Mum... I also found a place in Stellenbosch that I really rather liked, called Mystic Boer, which had a local band playing when we arrived, and then promptly proceeded to play loads of indie and rock music, which had me grinning, singing and bouncing around like a fool. Almost like being back at my beloved Oporto bar in Leeds, only with more dancing and most people chattering in Afrikaans! However, we eventually moved on from there (I think some of the group were hoping to find somewhere a bit more in tune with their musical tastes, though I was obviously distraught) and ended up in a place called Springbok's, which was basically a bit of a dive. The only thing going for it is that it's open ridiculously late, to the point that we only actually made it home around quarter to five in the morning. Which isn't ideal when you have to be up and on a shuttle to meet the Baz Bus around 8am.

Which, you guessed it, was what I had to do. For it was time to move on, leaving one of SA's great university cities and heading for the little town of Oudtshoorn, the undisputed Ostrich Capital of South Africa (and possibly the world). And that tale will have to await another telling, as it is getting on for sunset here in Coral Bay, and I am going to make one final attempt to get some decent sunset piccies from the beach (as if I haven't taken enough sunset pictures on this trip, but that's not the point).

Hope you are all well, and my apologies again for how ridiculously behind me this tale is getting.

Take care and have fun!

Pat