Sylvia's Journal

I don’t use Facebook much these days. I learned about all the devious ways that people with bad intentions ingratiate themselves with us first, so we share their posts and then the algorithms kick in. No more sharing or liking posts I don’t know the provenance of. I now mostly use FB to tell people where I am headed next in case someone I know is there too.

Such was the case during our South Africa trip. I was alerted by the daughter of good friends that her parents were in their South African home near Cape Town. A short side trip to Cape Town was already in our plans, after I finished my work, and this was even better. 

We were picked up at the airport and taken on a tour. First to a lovely restaurant built around trees with a wonderful view of pristine beaches and the ocean with it’s cold water coming all the way from the Antarctica.  We then drove the famous Chapman’s Peak road going north along the water’s edge and watching the Fynbos in all of its spring glory. At a pull-out overlooking HoutBay the second bottle of wine was brought out and we sipped a pink bubbly watching the bay and listening to stories about why it was called that way, and about Fynbos and about all sorts of other fascinating things to know about this part of the world.

Our friends know much about the history, fauna and flora of the Cape area which added a lot to the experience of driving northeast from Cape Town. We traversed the mountains through a tunnel and thought about the people with their covered wagons looking for a way over. The descent in the valley was our first peak at the ubiquitous vineyards, planted all these hundreds of years ago by people with a vision and a great tolerance for risk. Many of them my people (with Dutch DNA) as one of my colleagues said – stubborn like the Dutch, God-fearing and thumbing their noses at officialdom. 

We spent three days at our friends’ lovely house they built on the side of a hill overlooking, far in the distance, the vibrant green of vineyards in spring and the scraggly mountains behind and in front of them – giving them two amazing views a day of the sun coming up over and then setting behind the mountains in a burst of pink, rose, mauve, orange, and purple sunrises and sunsets.

And then there were always the best wines, which they know a lot about and are rather picky about. A cellar full of bottles for everyday and special occasions, a swimming pool to cool off in at the end of a warm and dusty day. Again, with wine: a glass of cool rosé, a rosé pool party, with a small drone taking pictures of us in our bliss.We are heading home for Thanksgiving in a day, spending our last night on the continent in a hipster Cape Town hotel. There is much to be grateful about.