Ronnie's Sex Shop

Ronnie's Sex Shop started it's life as Ronnie's Shop but I'm sure it pulls more cusomers in now that Sex has been added. We sampled their wares , 2 bottles of Miller's High Life please. Tom got a cricket overview from Ronnie himself who recognized a fellow ponytail sporting soul. We resisted the urge to buy a shirt, don't think anyone we know would wear it. 

It's really out in the middle of nowhere but definitely a destination stop. We were directed here by our SA friends and it's on our map along with ostrich farms, wineries, olive farms, aloe and cheese factories etc. A tour bus drove up  when we we leaving but most impressivly the Lambo club ride who parked neatly in a row for picture taking.

Vroom, vroom.

The saga of the oyster

The story starts next door to the Food Lover's Market. 

We loved that market, piles of fruit, veg and cheese and my favorite SA cookie, really yummy shortbread. 

Next door to this market was the fish market where I scored a dozen oysters. "No thank you" I said to the lady behind the counter when she asked me if I wanted them opened, I watched Jacques Pepin do it on TV. Well, let me tell you, it's a lots harder than it looks. It can't have anything to do with the fact I was using a table knife instead of an oyster knife can it? 

Here I am with sweat pouring down my face, I couldn't keep my glasses on. Not too many oysters on the plate either.

By the eleventh oyster I finally figured it out, you have to go straight down into the shell not sideways like I was trying to do it. Guess I should have googled it.

A squirt of grapefruit juice and down the hatch they went in less than a minute. It took at least a half an hour to open them.....

I am already for Normandy in June. Bring them on.

Oceans and coffee

OK, quick pop quiz - which foot is touching which ocean? You have the Southern Atlantic and the Indian Ocean.

To the uniniatiated they might both look the same, but.....

....if you carefully observe the sand patterns you quickly realize they are, indeed, absolutely identical. Bummer, dude. 

But there are specialties - the west coast/Atlantic has a thriving crawdad industry, unfortunately in its dormant season so Becky had to console herself with Oysters, lots of Oysters.

On the other hand, here's the still life of crawdad country where the seagulls got the bounty. 

Coffee - some of us like and drink it, some of us don't. But the coffee drinker on our trip doesn't like espresso and herein lies the issue - sophisticated city dwellers in SA and Europe don't drink filter coffee anymore. When Us barbaric country bumpkins arrive and wonder if they might get a cup of java without the "pssssht" noise included, we are shown a map of the backcountry where that brew is probably still available. 

And man, you got that right. A coffee pot, a hot milk pot, oh heavenly delight. I find the same reception where we're in the sticks in France - and here are a couple views of the country guest house that believes in unsophisticated coffee. This is a renovated ex-barn with wide verandas and an interesting ceiling. Our bathroom was still the original concrete floor of some old horse or cow's stall with an awesome claw footed bathtub. And those ceiling beams, just like France - hand hewn with an axe and adze. 

Africa? Or Afrikaans?

 Out in the Karoo, beyond the coastal mountain ranges, is a different SA. Just like Nevada, same mountain ranges like the Sierras hogging all the rain, same sort of scrubby terrain. But it's terrain that these guys just LOVE!

12 days old, these modern descendants of dinosaurs are raised like cattle on big ranches, same as beef or lamb. Ostrich leather, ostrich meat - very yummy, dark color like beef and No - they do NOT taste like chicken. 

Tell me this isn't Jurassic park material

We were also on the way to Cango Caves, a standard stalagmite/stalactite cave. We were entertained by our guide explained what happened to an adventure tour when a customer - sincerely and severely warned about the rigors of the 90 minutes slithering, sliding, squeezing through various tiny crevices - got stuck. And she caused the earlier group an 11 hour ordeal waiting for her to unstop the cork. 

Then, as Becky and I trudged back to the entrance with our guide heard him mutter something about a marathon running through the cave. "Say what?" Yes, a running race that started just outside the cave and although it was only 8 km who in their right mind would run through, at best, a partially lit cave with  450 steps each way? How many stretchers so you have on hand?

And to return to the title of this episode. When we had all gathered in the cave entrance our 2 guides asked who would like to have an English-speaking guide and who would like an Afrikaans-speaking guide. Toto, we're way not in Kansas anymore. It was half and half. Once over the coast range we don't leave English behind but it's really a strong Afrikaans-speaking region. Almost all signage is in Afrikaans and the English spoken has a pretty thick Afrikaans accent. 

The big drive

We started on the west coast in Paternoster full of charming white fishermen's cottages some old, some new

 

And dinner on the beach with oysters accompanied by an interestingly carved lime.

Scored a room in a guest house with a sliver of ocean view from the breakfast table.

And peddled 397 miles almost to  the east cape. My map says it should take six and a half hours but it took us nine. We were really, really tired of sitting in the car. 

But we landed in a lovely apartment in Knysnas (don't pronounce the k) with a balcony in the tree tops, smelly jasmine and birdsong all around. Lots of those songs were really exotic!

Knysnas is a real resort town, we took a boat out to the "heads" where the river flows into the sea. We had a ride to the top of the hill and walked very carefully downtown to the bottom through the Featherbed Nature Preserve and lunch. 

Car talk, for gear heads and those who would LIKE to be...

This is one of the most common vehicles in South Africa - double cab pickup. They are about Ford Ranger size and EVERYBODY ships one to SA. We've seen Izusu, Toyota, VW, Nissan, Ford Ranger, little bitty Chevy that's probably Korean, and the color invariably is....white. Probably so it will show the mud or dust to prove without a doubt that you're a genuine back country rambler. Ironically the US car that would fit in here perfectly - Honda Ridgeline - a no show. I Wonder if Honda makes them in US instead of Japan. 

There are an infinite variety of cars here - no domestic mfg. of cars so all are welcome and they flock here. Most of the Renault and Japanese makers re-badge their models, like GM used to do for Canadian sales of GM vehicles but the trim levels are a tad more Spartan if our rental cars are any example. Doors don't "thunk" as they close because less US-mandated safety stuff inside, none of the rentals have had cruise control - and our 9 hour/ 400 mile marathon from Atlantic resort of Indian Ocean resort sure could have used that. Electric doors locks/windows all standard but the accelerator pedal on our Honda station wagon (similar size/style to Becky's Mazda) was way too wimpy. 

But when you see a Porsche Cayman with right hand drive, personally I need to sit down and have a little nap. Some things are just not right. 

If you like Oregon because your gas is pumped by a "Fuel Technician" - you'll love SA. Turn back the clock - "fill'er up with high test (95 octane!), please" - "you bet, pal - check your oil and water, too". You'd never have to leave your car unless you were short on snack fuel or needed to empty your personal tank. 

Places to go in and around Cape Town

Kirstenbosch Garden is huge. We spent 6 hours exploring it all. 

We were intrigued by the fynbos plants. We couldn't figure out the term. It just means native to the cape region. Which has more plants than any other of the flower kingdoms, six thousand of the nine thousandplus in the world, honest, look it up.

We really enjoyed the animals as much as the plants. We saw 3 week old baby owlets, guinea fowl and a  tortoise.

Robben Island  is where Nelson Mandella and many other political prisoners were kept.

Lots like Alcatraz with a much longer and rougher boat ride. We did see whales and dolphins not too far off. All the passengers rushed to that side of the boat which seemed a little scary. We thought they should spread out a bit. 

The tour guide was really interesting,  the prisoners had illegal group discussions covering topics such as current events from snuggled newspappers, political strategies and writings by Mandella and other leaders. Pretty grim conditions but a great view of Cape Town. That's the tablecloth on table mountain.

We were taken out to Stellenbosh and Franschhoek by our friend Retha and her husband Johan. Food, wine and gardens, it doesn't get any better than that.

We tasted wine at Le Motte owned by the Rupert Family's- richest guy in South Africa. Good stuff too. We caved and bought some to bring home.

The babylonstoren garden was pretty interesting, they have a hotel, farm store, cafe and resaurant, orchards.

More of my bits and pieces

@

We've got camping garbage cans in California parks that mostly frustrate raccoons and even bears - South Africa has baboons and they are tough Dudes!

Driving in SA is "interesting". Right hand drive is not an issue ("stay left" is my constant mantra) but sharing the road uses imagination. It's plenty wide for 3 cars on a 2-lane highway, especially when the slower traffic moves way over onto the shoulder. We did have 1 thrilling adventure on the way to Krueger when we were just learning the process and thought all oncoming traffic would also move over to allow the pass. We don't know if THAT guy either didn't see us earlier or was just a hard case but he didn't move over and it was a last minute squeeze and we didn't try that maneuver again. Nobody had to stop and change their jockey shorts but it was a short moment of "uncertainty". 

The Apple juice factory - enormous Apple processing plant is part of the bike race with scaffolding ramps leading to it as well as a fantastic array inside the huge stack of apple harvest boxes. 

This stack of boxes is over a hundred yards long and 50 yards wide. And then I ordered a "savanna dark" cider from this facility for lunch that day and gave it 3 thumbs up - awesome!

I've been here, too!

Since all of my Krueger animal pictures are safely contained in my big SD card - and will stay that way until I get home - my blog is going to start when we arrived in Somerset West, a Capetown suburb next to SA wine Disneyland in Stellenbosch. It looks like this

And the real reason we're in SA is a long timed planned but never consummated reunion of Sea Otter friends. For the uninitiated, Sea Otter is a great big bicycle festival (what else...!) held in Monterey each April. I worked there for more than 10 years and we have been hosts to a gang of South Africans who have been a critical part of the Operationions Team. They travel 30 hours or more each way to get here and Becky and I figured we could do it, too - once. 

These guys work on their own races the rest of the year - all mountain bike events - and they are phenomenally elaborate. The event they're preparing this week is "Wine to Whales", a 3-day event with camping (and Glamping for those who will pay) and it contains a number of temporary bridges to cross a variety of course features - like ravines or Apple production facilities, like these

OK, more tomorrow

Two of my favorite things

Food and scouts!

We started the day visiting the community garden. The homeless can work in the garden and earn tokens to be redeemed at the local shelter for food, toiletries or even a bed for the night. 

They grow a vast array of food that is available to be purchased. We bought a lot - carrots, Swiss chard, lettuce, grapefruit marmalade, radishes, turnips and cabbage.

 We even bought artichokes which we had to go out into the field to harvest.

Then we went to the super duper Woolworth's food store and went down every aisle. Lots of things were familiar, some not so much. They had a paella mix of seafood looked very appealing. Unfortunately out host is allergic to fish. 

We bought the ingredients for bobotie, a South African cassarole I have been wanting to make. It's Cape Malay fare served with yellow rice, coconut, bananas and chutney. Yum.

While we were waiting for dinner, I went off to a guide meeting with Stepanie, the resident guide. They made up skits demonstrating the the guide laws while taking turns at the sewing machine.

They are making halter tops from bandana to sell along with various other things in support of cheetah rescue, this year's charity. I got to help with the sewing, I was right at home.