Elora in Cape Town: My lively and Eventful Three-Day Weekend

I’m writing a few weeks after the matter but I wanted to record the awesomeness that transpired in this period. The story begins the week of March 14^th. This was by all means an unenjoyable time where everyone in the house spent the entire week pouring over their laptops and staying up much later than usual writing a 20 page paper for our Poverty and Development class, which was due that Friday. Although I did have a leg up in the process because the subject of the paper is pretty much everything I have been engaging with these past three years at school, I did, nonetheless, devote a lot of time to this paper. But my hard work paid off and I managed to finish relatively early Thursday evening, which enabled me to partake in the St. Patrick’s Day festivities. Mainly, I went with a few of my friends to Dubliner, an Irish bar on Long Street (Cape Town’s less sleazy Bourbon St.) downtown to have a beer and bounce. Honestly, I would have stayed longer but my comrades were naughty and hadn’t quite finished their papers yet. Going out, even for a bit, may have been a poor choice though because I had a 8am class the next day and thus spent the rest of my weekend in sleep deprivation but hell, Im still young!

Friday night I went to see this awesome, high-energy band, Goldfish, play at this trendy club called Trinity. Trinity has four floors and was packed with young and hip cats (especially young beautiful South Africa boys), which was actually surprising. Some clubs are definitely cool but sometimes you go to them and the crowd is rather geriatric. There was also a large group of Americans which was odd, most of them were from CIEE Arts and Science. Im pretty sure the Americans were the most shameless groupies as well. They all fought to the front, kicking and screaming, failing to maintain the cool composure characteristic of South Africans. Again we went home a little earlier than I would have liked but we had a wine tasting at 9 in the morning (WTF!! Who in the world schedules a wine tasting as 9 in the morning, SAs are total alcoholics!) so it was all for the better.

Our wine tasting was in Stellenbosch, the wine region to the North of CT. We rolled up to the swanky Neethlingshof estate, had a rather short cellar tour, I finally learned what tannins are (sort of), and tasted 3 white wines and 2 reds. One of the white wines tasted like litchi fruit and I actually really liked it and the winery’s signature red wine was fabulous. The best part was visiting the vineyard’s wine shop and realizing these wines were actually dirt-cheap. I picked up two whites for 40 Rand a pop, which is about 6 US dollars. I would have gotten that really good red which was R100 but I just didn’t have enough cash on me, that’s only 14 dollars! After that we went to the Stellenbosch market and had a picnic. Saturday was actually incredibly hot, about 90 degrees, so once we got back from Stellenbosch a few of us went to Clifton Beach to cool off in the cold Pacific waters. Then, that evening Cape Town was putting on a sort of Carnival parade celebration thing along Long Street so I also went to that. The parade was pretty entertaining (I believe the tequila shots I had taken and this really silly bar on Long St. called “Bobs” helped as well) and then when it was over there was a DJ club party thing on the street and vendors selling beer everywhere.

So Im sorry to say this but the story keeps going. The following day, Sunday, we then went to Robben Island. As you could guess it was both fascinating and sobering. All the tour guides were actually former prisoner and we got to see Nelson Mandela’s cell, a beached whale (not part of the standard tour but definitely sad), and the limestone quarry where countless prisoners, including Mandela, slaved away in grueling physical labor while also engaging in the discourse that continued their struggle against apartheid. On a lighter note, Robben Island has the third largest population of Africa penguins and were often seen about the island huddling under bushes, waddling about, and doing other painfully adorable things. After Robben Island I took a much-needed break, which was lovely. But don’t worry my weekend was not about to come to an end, the next day was International Human Rights Day and a public holiday in SA!

So Monday I escaped Cape Town and went on a hike. I went with a South African friend so it was also a nice break from the Americans I am surrounded by day-in and day-out. The area is called Silvermine, and had a perfect mix of water (my fav) and sweeping views of Western Cape Town. We hiked to this cave called the elephants eye and chilled out looking at the incredible sight. After our hike we went to this Thai place and I got the first green curry that has ever lived up to Mudu Noodles in Santa Fe. I will definitely be going back to that place.

Well the weekend had finally come to an end and I spent the remainder of my week in front of a computer making an Internet user manual for Yabonga. The next week was spring/fall break and Ill be blogging about that next. To bring it full circle though, when I got back from break Yabonga had printed off my manuals, so I am now a published author (not) and I got an A+ on my Poverty and Development paper. Pretty cool!