Sundays

Sorry to worry everyone for the delay in posting. Work has been quite busy the past few weeks as I'm working to get everything ready for the upcoming conference in April. Well, this week will have better and more frequent updates!

So the past two Sundays have been busy days for me. The Sunday before last (March 6) I went wine tasting with a few friends I've made here. We went to Uva Mira which is one of the highest elevation vineyards in the Stellenbosch area and sits on the slope of Helderburg mountain.

Here are the main vines at Uva Mira. The beautiful house on the hill is not a part of the winery, but it is still gorgeous. You can also see Helderburg behind it.

Wine tasting is a pretty good deal, as we got to taste 7 different wines (4 whites and 3 reds) for R40, or about $5.60 CAD. And these wines are fantastic! Uva Mira has an award winning Chardonnay which is amazing. I usually prefer red wine to white, but the whites here are very nice. Also, one of my friends is doing her MSc in Viticulture and Enology which is the study of vine growing and wine production, so she is an expert when it comes to wines. I'm learning from her all about the different wine making processes and flavors which is really cool. So it was a very nice, relaxing Sunday afternoon.

Here are the casks at Uva Mira. Apparently different wood gives different flavours to wine (for those, who like me, know very little about the process).

This past Sunday was the Cape Argus which is a giant bike race around the Cape of Good Hope which ends in Cape Town. It's a 109 km race and over 45,000 people participated this year. My friend's brother and his brother's girlfriend were biking and so we got up early Saturday morning to go and watch, hoping for a chance to cheer them on.

We picked a spot about 40 minutes from the end of the race along the pass. From this view, you can see False Bay but when I turn around I can see the Atlantic. A very beautiful spot. The Argus is staggered so the elite cyclists (whose past times were fast enough to qualify them for this tier) start first in the morning and then the start times after that vary with the latest start times starting around noon. Another neat thing about the Argus is that you see people of all different fitness levels biking and everyone has a really positive attitude. I even saw one guy biking in the famous Borat mankini. I really hope he remembered his sunscreen!

Turning around, the Atlantic is ahead and the tired cyclists have reached the top of the hill to head back down towards Cape Town. Unfortunately my friend's started later in the day so we didn't get a chance to see them but I cheered on lots of other people, including some Canadians in Canada jerseys! The route for the race is supposed to be really beautiful. I think someday I might have to come back and race it!

After the Argus, we went to Century City Canal Walk which is this giant shopping mall just outside Cape Town. It's themed to look like Venice and was very cool, much like the V&A Waterfront. After lunch, I did some quick shopping for things I can't get in Stellenbosch. The mall is really beautiful though.

There are even canal's and boat tours that run through the canal's surrounding the mall. It was a nice stop and a good chance to have lunch.

I think later this week I'll be posting pictures of my second plantation visit to Grabouw which was on Wednesday. Sorry again for the delay!