Updated December 2021
Oh Africa, Brave Africa
After a short 40 hour journey, we finally arrived in Cape Town. Despite our jet lag, we were excited and rented a tiny stick shift sedan (they drive on the wrong side of the road here) and headed to the Hemel-en-Aarde wine region to attend a Pinot Noir festival. Read more about our experience at the festival
Early impressions with South Africa so far:
- People are extremely nice and outgoing. Especially when they learn how far we flew to this tiny wine region
- The wine is great! And cheap! We don’t see much imported South African wine in the States, so this was a pleasant surprise
After Hemel-en-Aarde we spent a few more weeks in the Stellenbosch and Swartland wine regions before returning the car and finally getting to enjoy the much hyped Cape Town. Find our post on Stellenbosch here
Cape Town!!
Everyone raves about Cape Town. Did it live up to the hype? Absolutely. Idyllic weather, great restaurants, pristine beaches, cultural exhibits.. and so inexpensive! Typical nightly room went for ~$50 USD in peak Summer and high end tasting dinners ran about $60 per person.
Hiking Table Mountain was definitely a highlight as was connecting with some new friends we met at the Pinot Festival; they got us into a trendy new restaurant and let us crash at their beach pad for a night!
Cassie started photography lessons with a local instructor and Jesse got into a sailing race at the Royal Cape Yacht Club. We put together a guide to Cape Town for all of our recommendations!
Desert and Jungle
The original plan when leaving in mid Jan was to do South Africa for one month, India for one month and Japan for one month. Well, that changed almost immediately when we realized how much we were enjoying South Africa.. it just didn’t make sense to rush!
We kept hearing recommendations about Namibia. Neither of us had really heard much about it but when so many people recommend going, you just have to trust them sometimes.
We flew into Walvis Bay, Namibia and spent a few days driving the country, hiking the world’s largest sand dunes, exploring the world’s oldest desert, spotting zebras & other wildlife and trying our hand at sandboarding.
Namibia is desolate — really nothing around but a few German tourists (used to be a German colony back in the day). All the roads were gravel and unkept, so we had to rent a beast of a 4×4 truck to manage; luckily no flat tires for us!
Off to Zimbabwe
From Namibia we set off for Zimbabwe, home of Victoria Falls. Actually, Vic Falls is shared by Zimbabwe and Zambia, right on the border. We went for a run one morning, starting in Zimbabwe, crossed into Zambia and viewed the falls from the other side.
The falls were massive! Pictures can’t really do justice to the sheer scale. One morning after viewing the falls, we got absolutely drenched just from the mist alone. We spent another day white water rafting down the river which was a real treat. The rapids were around a 3-4 level and the water was warm, so we didn’t mind getting wet. The guide even let us go down a few smaller rapids outside of the boat.
One interesting note about Zimbabwe is that they only take USD and Euros. Their government and economy is in the gutter so there’s no faith in the hyper-inflated Zimbabwean Dollar. We found a note for 5 billion dollars — total worth about $0.10 USD.
After a few days in the humid jungle, it was time to get back to some coastal temps and good wine. We flew back to Cape Town and rented a proper SUV for driving the famous garden route.
The Road Ahead
A spectacular weekend with extremely welcoming Airbnb hosts in the Constantia district, a few days touring the Robertson wine valley and now we begin the drive along the garden route.. and beyond!
We’re keeping our plans very flexible with the Corona outbreak and we generally don’t book lodging until 1-2 days out. But tentative plans over the next month are:
- Safari in a private game reserve in South Africa
- Hiking in Lesotho
- Diving and Pyramid’ing in Egypt
- Snowboarding and wine discovery in Georgia (the country)
Thanks for reading! If you haven’t already, follow us on Instagram @thewinescribes and make sure to share us with your friends who love wine and travel!
-Jesse and Cassie
