A Lot of Work and a Little Play in Cape Town, South Africa (Part 1)

I travel a lot for work. And generally, I really enjoy it. It's a great way to see the world, and there is a lot to see out there! I tend to favor the trips that I know about in advance, such that I can do some research, and really prepare myself for the culture, cuisine, and environment.

But sometimes, as things work out, I don't get a lot of notice. This was one such trip. And a trip I dared not miss! I had some very important work to do here, and "here" was somewhere really quite interesting...a place where I had never been, and never really, actually thought I might go!

Cape Town, South Africa! Just a few months ago, I remembered watching the World Cup, spread across the great cities of South Africa, and maybe subconsciously noted that I'd like to visit some day. That day came far quicker than I might have guessed.

I left Los Angeles (where I gave a presentation at the SCALE 9x conference) on a Saturday evening, flying 12 hours from LAX to London Heathrow, spending a cool 9 hours in the Heathrow international lounge, before embarking on the subsequent 12.5 hour flight  (again overnight) to Cape Town.

That's right, there's a giant bronze elephant at the airport entrance/exit.  Welcome to Africa indeed!

Leaving LAX on a Saturday, I arrived in Cape Town on Monday morning, around 10am, and caught a taxi to the suburb of Durbanville where I was working for the week.  You might say that I was in a bit of a haze, having spent the previous two nights more or less in an upright seat on two different planes.  No shower either.  Day 1 was mostly a haze, and I opted out of the group dinner, dining instead at the guest house, on some quite tasty beef stroganoff.

The Kolping Guest House itself was a lovely property.  This was my view from a corner room, looking at the pool and the breakfast/dinner nook.

It sounds like our accommodations varied widely among our group.  Mine was a very spacious apartment, with kitchen/dining/futon in the entry room, a bedroom in back, and a large bathroom.  Some of us had air conditioning.  I did not.  Still, I slept very comfortably every night.

The property sported this enormous palm tree...

Whose bark was covered with a soft fern.

I think these are boganvillas, or something similar.  Quite colorful.

 

My Louisiana heritage typically has me pretty prepare for mosquitoes.  So I didn't bother with the mosquito "weapons" the guest house team offered :-)  I was fine, by the way.

The exchange rate while I was there was about 7 Rand to 1 dollar.  So the hotel mini bar offered bottles of local red and white whine for under $10, and beer was about $1.50.  Not bad at all!

I spent most of the week acclimating to my new running shoes, the Five Fingers by Merrell.  I'm still getting used to them, but I'm up to 6 miles in them now.  That was 6 pretty brutal miles, though.  I had as many blisters as some of my 20 and 22 milers!

I spent the week working from the Shuttleworth Foundation offices.  The grounds are absolutely spectacular!  The pool, the sculptures, and the gardens are relaxing, inspiring, and just beautiful.

I really enjoyed the Japanese-style goldfish pond.  I took a walk around here every day after lunch.

It was late summer here of course, it being March.  There were many flowers in bloom.  I heard the head gardener is someone quite special.  She's done a fabulous job!

Tuesday night, we had dinner as a full group in the open air at a streetside table in Stellenbosch, at a Cuban restaurant.  I sampled several of the local wines and we had lengthy conversations about science fiction literature and programming languages.

Wednesday night, we drove through Cape Town, to Camps Bay with its bouncing beach scene.

We just missed sunset over the Atlantic Ocean, but the dusk colors were still visible when we arrived.

There's no shortage of neon lights and music in Camps Bay.

We ate at a mostly-seafood restaurant called Blues.  It was quite metropolitan, and maybe even a little upscale.

I had eight enormous prawns.  Already shelled, you just break the head off and eat.  Mmm.

And a nicely done cappuccino for dessert.

Cape Town was 8 hours ahead of my family in Texas and Louisiana.  I did manage to Skype with Kim a couple of times.  I also caught up with my Mom and her class, as well as my sister and her class.  It's fun talking to their students about the far corners of the world.  The bandwith was considerably better at work, than at the guest house :-)

On Friday night, a smaller group of us visited the oldest vineyard in all of South Africa, Groot Constantia, founded in the late 1600s.  Documents here claim that this vineyard was Napoleon Bonaparte's personal supplier of wine while he was in exile (seems the English cut him off from his beloved French wine).

Look Mom, I'm eating my vegetables!  Caprese salad for first course.

For my main course, I thoroughly enjoyed the local delicacy, "bobotie", a sort of lamb meatloaf, with fruit mixed in.  Very tasty!

For dessert, several of us indulged in a glass of the vineyard's dessert wine.  An interesting story accompanies this very special bottle...  In 2004, a piece of glass bearing the words "Constantia Wyn" was found off the coast of Delaware.  A bit of digging through the annals of history pointed to a South African / Dutch shipwreck in the area in 1774.  This particular bottle is produced in the style and spirit of that 18th century gem.

Well, we went this far.  I just couldn't do without a local custard/cake and a scoop of ice cream for dessert.

So that pretty much concluded my work week in Cape Town.  Not much sight-seeing during the week.  I did go for a run most mornings, and enjoyed the flavors of South Africa at night.  My next two posts will cover my Saturday and Sunday I spent exploring this unique corner of the world!

:-Dustin