Stellenbosch

My time here in South Africa is rapidly coming to a close. Today Jess and I traveled to Stellenbosch through the Stellenbosch Wine Route stopping (of course) at a winery for a wine tasting. We stopped at the Ernie Els Winery. He is apparently a golfer and bought a winery here and named it after himself. We tried three wines and I liked the mid-range one. The other two smelled and tasted (to me) like mushrooms and old attic. However, we had a nice time and the scenery around us was beautiful. And the wine I liked was really good.

Today was the first day since I’ve been here that the weather has been kind of rotten. And it still wasn’t that bad. It rained when we were inside and was just overcast when we were walking about. After the winery we drove into Stellenbosch proper and stopped at this crazy “general store” type place called Oom Samie Se Winkel. They had crazy stuff including scary masks (like of Richard Nixon), vintage clothing, wine, dried fish (just caught last week-ish!), candy, antique hair brushes, and pictures of Jesus. Oom Samie Se Winkel means Uncle Sam’s Shop and it’s an old shop that I think used to be a trading post.

From there we parked the car and walked Stellenbosch. Stellenbosch reminds me a bit of Nashville, Indiana or Bloomington (for all you Hoosiers). It’s a quaint college town with Dutch Colonial architecture, lots of shops and restaurants, and of course, its own market. The market in Stellenbosch actually had a lot of fabric which was perfect because I wanted to buy a length of fabric to take home to make pillows with, so I bargained with this woman and got 60 rand knocked off her price for a couple of meters of fabric. Now I just have to decide what to do with it once I get home.

We looked around for a great lunch place and finally asked if there was any place that had ostrich burgers and we were directed to 5 Ryneveld, a restaurant that specializes in gourmet burgers. Oh yes…I had ostrich! It was good and tasted a lot like cow. Jess and I liked the ambiance of the place with its shabby chic black beady chandeliers and red cushions. After that we walked a bit more and found a great shop called Era where it seemed that everything was on sale and we both bought crazy funky gypsy skirts for just about $10.00.

We finished up our day at Stellenbosch by having Italian Gelato (basically ice cream) and I had the chocolate hazelnut. On the drive back to Cape Town we drove down the interstate that is bordered on both sides by townships. We were able to see children playing soccer in the small greens created by the interstate clover-leafs. I can’t say enough about the poor conditions of the townships, although the people who live there do appreciate the close-knit community atmosphere that living there fosters. I did not take the picture above of the township…I just found it online for you all. They now have electricity, but they do not have running water.

Tomorrow we are either going to the sea again so I can collect some more African sea shells, or to the botanical gardens. We will see what the weather plans for us!


Ernie Els Wines
Oom Samie Se Winkel
Stellenbosch Tourism