How the snobby have fallen!

It’s no secret to anyone that I like my creature comforts, including good food and wine.  So, when we left Cape Town, we of course headed for the South African wine country.   Specifically, we headed to what our guide book calls “the sybaritic capital not only of South Africa, but of Africa.”  The town is called Franschhoek and it was everything that the guide book claimed it to be.  Except for the fact that the mountains around the valleys are so much bigger, Franschhoek reminded me of Napa or St. Helena.  And they take their wine tasting seriously.  In a couple of places, they had tables outside under the shade trees (it was hot) and waitresses brought your wine samples to the table.

 

There were tons of restaurants in town and we had really excellent dinners the two nights we were there.   Both the food and the wine are 1/3 to 1/2 the price that you would pay for comparable items in the Bay Area.  During the day we rented bikes to tour around and, of course, ended up at a winery. 

The process of renting the bikes was about as casual as any business transaction I’ve ever participated in.  The guy asked us how long we wanted the bikes for.  He told us the price for the half-day rental and we gave him the cash, but then he said, “We’re closing early today.  When you bring the bikes back, drop them off at the video store next door.”  That was it.  No deposit, no credit card form.  No big deal.  Just bring the bikes back and leave them next door, won’t you?  It was refreshing.

With a sigh of regret, we left Franschhoek after 2 days, to get off the tourist route and see a little of the “real” South Africa.  And so to Barrydale.  The guide book says that the only reason to go to Barrydale is to experience “small town South Africa”.  That should have been our first clue.

The South African Tourist Board is trying to promote “Route 62” as an alternative to the coast-hugging Garden Route.  “Route 62” is a direct rip off the “Route 66” tv series.  Even the signs look alike.  What Route 62 has to offer is a lot of what Route 66 in the States is about – mile after mile of scrub brush, punctuated every now and then by a pass through the mountains separating the valleys full of scrub.  

 

 

We stopped in  a dorp (small South African town) along the route for lunch and found a little cafe run by a family of hippies (their term, not mine) escaping from the big city.  The whole family, including children, 2 dogs, and several cats were running around in the patio while we ate our sandwich.  Good sandwich, though.

We finally arrived in Barrydale.  Here is the main street of Barrydale on a Saturday afternoon.  After looking around for about 30 seconds, we found our B&B.  Right here I have to admit to being a victim of my own prejudice.  I had read in our guide book that the Tradouw Guest House was “gay owned”.  So I figured if a couple of gay guys own the place it would probably be pretty nice.  Wrong!  I didn’t take any pictures of the inside of the place because I was embarrassed to do so.  But it looked like every slightly seedy, dusty desert motel you’ve ever seen in the movies – bare wood floors, a “lounge” filled with furniture from the Truman administration, and plumbing in the guest room that must have been original with the building.  Gay stereotypes do have a grain of truth, however – there were album covers of Broadway musicals stapled all over the walls in the bar.

Oh, yes, the bar.  One of the guys who owns the place, Leon, has set up a bar that caters solely to his guests and his friends.  I think it is just an excuse for him to drink and chat with people all evening.  Man does he love to chat!  Fortunately, what he had to say was pretty interesting.  We sat and had a beer with Leon and two friends before dinner.  One of the friends had driven 30 miles (from the next closest town, Suurbraat) to have a beer.  The other friend was an Indian transgendered woman from Cape Town who had driven down (2.5 hours!) for the day.  The friend from Suurbraat, Graham, had moved to this area from Johannesburg.  He and his partner were tired of the corporate rat race in Jo’burg and decided to make a change.  So they bought a plot of land at the edge of a historically-black township and proceeded to build themselves a house.  Because the town had been a black town prior to 1994 (the end of the Apartheid regime), property is cheap.  He said when they moved to Suurbraat there were about 4 other white faces in town (out of about 3000 people) but now there were 30 or so.  Leon was more than willing to talk about the Apartheid years and the many ways that the blacks were oppressed.  We also talked about taxes, something that interested us since the infrastructure of much of the country – roads, water systems, etc.  - is on a par with the US or Europe and we wondered how it all is funded.  The discussion continued with  health care, jobs, poverty, race, and on and on. 

We were lucky that two of the four eating establishments in town had decided to stay open that night.  The menu at the one we chose was just what you’d expect – meat and potatoes in several different forms.  I ordered the braised lamb shank.  After a while about 1/4 of a baby sheep arrived on a plate, accompanied by a cup of mashed potatoes.  I ate most of it, and was glad to have it, but I dreamt that night of cardamom ice cream from Reubens Restaurant in Franschhoek.

We escaped Barrydale the next morning to get back on the tourist route as quickly as we could.  This took us to Tsitsikama National Park on the south coast , where we did some hiking, including this crossing of the Storms River Mouth on a hanging footbridge.  The coastline is very reminiscent of Big Sur.  And, of course, Ralph got to swim in the Indian Ocean.

 

We’ve got a big driving day tomorrow, about halfway across South Africa or 750 kilometers (500 miles).  The day after that, we drive into Lesotho, where I spent 3+ years as a Peace Corps Volunteer 35 years ago.