Tuesday, December 9, 2008

We accidentally slept in today. I wake up at 8:30a and Gareth, who is sleeping out on a pull-out bed, wakes up also. Liza wakes up shortly after and we have to wake Roger up. The weather is very windy and we decide we can’t go up the Table Mountain today. The cable cars won’t be running. Instead we decide to go wine tasting and to Spier.

We head to grab something to eat (I get a bagel with cream cheese, lox and tomatoes and a mocha—or as they call it, a choclachino). From there we head up to Fairview Winery. We’re a little behind schedule as we want to do too much before they all close. We go in and start tasting wines. Adriaan helps us. Wow. Adriaan. I won’t say anymore. We pay for six wines and cheese. They have like 8 cheeses out with some dipping sauces for some. Man, some of those cheeses are good, but the ginger and lime dipping sauce is SO good, I buy two jars. I also buy a jar of the spicy and sweet sauce.

In terms of the wines, they have some really good ones. I order a few bottles of one wine in particular that is really yummy. It’s called a Spice Route Mourvedre 2006. Roger and Liza order some of their own wine also. They’ll be shipped once I get home. We also buy some t-shirts. I’m tipsy and hope Adriaan copies down my email or something.

The winery is pretty cool since they make their own cheeses from the goats they keep there. Upon entering you see them climbing a little tower with a stairwell around the outside. Unfortunately we can’t stay long.

We decide we can’t go next door to taste and see the glass-blowing, so we head to Spier. We have lunch reservations there. We sit to eat and we are seated in a lower level tree house. We order wine and go grab food at the buffet. In the background you can hear African drums. Somewhere there are people doing traditional dances, but we’re seated too far away to see it. We all get our faces painted with traditional designs. I should do this every day!

At the buffet the have oxtail, chicken, springbok, lamb, fish. We get a big plate of food. We also receive at our table a number of different breads with things to dip them in—hummus, harissa, olive oil and some nutty concoction. The food is very good, but we have to eat it quickly. From there we grab dessert from the buffet table, but walk directly to the cheetah petting area (tipsy the night before I called it “chetting the peetahs”.

They have adult and 7-month old cheetahs. We pay money to see the kittens and are let into the enclosure with four young cheetahs. They have just been fed (we watched them eat before we went in) and they are lazing about. We are told to approach them from behind and only to pet their backs and sides. At one point the second one Gareth is petting seems a bit unhappy and they ask him to move. Scary! They are the only big cats that purr and while Roger and I are petting Alf he starts purring. They’re so beautiful! We do this for a bit and then exit to see another set of animals. What a cool experience!

The area with some other animals (including meer cats) is not open. Instead we go to the eagle and birds of prey exhibition. There are tons of amazing birds. Some of them are huge. We get to hold a black eagle. It’s pretty cool because it lets us pet him also. There are also some beautiful owls. One barn owl chick looks like a bad drag queen, eyebrows high on it’s head.

We wanted to go to another winery, Waterford, but it’s too late. We drive back and stop to buy some wine and get petrol. We just zip back home, but decide we’re going to go out and get some chocolate and take away later on.

So now Roger and I are doing laundry, the wind is still gusting and we’re watching some weird television drama and going through pictures to write the blog. We hope to be able to go horseback riding on the beach, see penguins and eat in a nice area called Kalk Bay. We’ll see.