Monday February 21st 2011 Other days in South Africa...I know it's late

My last two days in South Africa were not nearly as exciting as my first few were, but still full of good things…goooood things.  Monday we hiked table mountain.  A much more difficult hike than I actually thought it would be.  Charlie and I did not exactly get the early start which we were hoping for and were planning on going alone to get it done quickly.  Of course Charlie being the polite kid he is, invited 2 girls we saw at lunch who also wanted to hike it…Perfect. I warned them that I would be moving quickly and if they wanted to go with us they would have to keep up, to which she responded… “Don’t worry, we can hang.  You will probably be following us up the mountain.”  Because it is not very eventful, I will make a long story short.  The very girl that said that did more complaining than Kresley when she is hungry and had to take breaks every few seconds.  I ended up finishing alone and having a snack at the top for half an hour waiting for them. Beautiful view.  Pictures to follow.
Today was our Wine Tour… yay. Winelands are huge in South Africa and they have hundreds of estates spread throughout the three towns of Franschoek, Paarl, and Stellenbosch.  It reminds me of a much larger Niagara on the Lake area. Charlie, Drew, Aaron, Grace and I only did a half day tasting with my new friend cab driver Erufaan because we had to be back to the port on time for me to first update pictures to Facebook and then get on the ship by 5 for on ship time.  We were able to visit 2 of the wine estates which were beautiful and one brandy distillery, each of which we had tastings at (Charlie did not like the brandy so did not get a tasting there and is made fun of it still about a week and a half later).  Stellenbosch was like a whole other side of Cape Town because instead of mountains and buildings it was instead rolling hills with rows after rows of grapes and other crops growing.  The wine estates were absolutely amazing because being in Africa, they had animals on the grounds.  Everything from Cheetahs, to baby white lions, to Zebras, to exotic birds…all of which you can encounter and play with, although not always the smartest idea after having some of their local wine.   The highlight of the trip was when we got back to the ship and back on.  The first thing we all had to do was return our passport to the front desk because we needed them to get off in S.A. for whatever reason.  Grace Lyons got very tired apparently from her wine and fell asleep before doing so.  And failed to hear her name announced over the speaker to return it.  And failed to hear it when they called her a second time(now about 1900).  Guess what Grace? You were late returning your passport? DOCK TIME…no Mauritius for Grace this time around unfortunately…it sucks but I think she learned her lesson. 
        Yeah so South Africa was pretty awesome all in all.