South Africa - Part 1 - The Adult stuff

Raquel just came back from 2 weeks in South Africa on a business trip. Here are a few of the cool pictures and videos that she brought back.

This is Cape Town, an old Dutch colony at the foot of Table Mountain. This is a shot of the marina looking at Table Mountain in the background. Raquel's hotel is the tallest white structure behind the light blue building on the left side of the picture. On the weekend Raquel got to go to the top of the mountain.

This is Raquel's co-worker, Steve. Joining Raquel and Steve in this picture is Mervin, their driver for the 2 weeks, who Raquel learned this day was a Christian. It was pretty neat, Mervin came to Raquel and asked, "are you a believer?" Raquel said yes, and then he said, "washed by the blood?" Raquel said yes, and then he said "I knew it, I felt it in my spirit." So we got a warm invitation to stay in his house next time we are in South Africa.

After Table Mountain, Raquel got to go to the Cape of Good Hope. As you can see, not the most Southern tip of Africa, but the "most south-western point" of Africa. A little bit of local learning: Raquel learned that there is another location which is actually the most southern point of the continent where the locals get pretty upset because they constantly get upstaged by Cape of Good Hope.

Raquel also got to see a few of the famous South African wineries. She went just to taste the grape juice and eat cheese, but the stuff was so good that she got drunk...... no not really .... but she did bring back some really good wine. Her favorite winery was this one (Fairfield) with a beautiful main house, gorgeous gardens and where you could walk among the vines. (Yes - my honey is a sucker for a pretty garden, as you can tell by all the pictures of our own garden on the blog.)

The goat is a part of the label for the bottles. (Neil says they use him to stomp the grapes.)There was a historical winery that had the old giant wood wine vats first constructed by the Portuguese. This place also had some beautiful carvings at the ends of the barrels telling the story of wine making in South Africa. There were over a dozen carved barrels in a room called "The Chapel" where they do parties and have classical music playing all the time.

Here is Raquel experiencing a little bit of local culture. This restaurant called "Mama Africa" served dishes from all over the continent. This is a shot of the menu. You don't actually choose the dish, they bring you one of each kind just for you to try.