Wooing The Cape Epic: Apr 9, 2008

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Cape Town and traveling home

On Monday, JD and I got up early to head to the airport. He was of to Krueger for a safari and I had until 3pm to get as much Cape Town in as I could. Jim was to go to Wellington to go flyfishing for monster trout. I was totally jealous.

By 8am we were at the airport. After saying bye to JD and putting my baggage in temporary storage, I grabbed a cab to Table Mountain. (Day 2 of being a tourist).

I spent a couple hours there and another hour at the Waterfront before it was time to head back to the airport.

The flight back was a bit of a hassle. Cape Town to Johannesburg was delayed and had me hustling to catch my flight 45 minutes later to Frankfurt. You'd think that's plenty of time, but I barely made it. My legs were killing me the whole 10+ hour flight. My appetite was tremendous and despite the two meals they served, if it weren't for the exact food I purchased before boarding I think I would have starved! I emptied my pockets and spent every last rand I had on food, ok beer, at the vendor right next to our gate. Actually, the vendor let me slide as I was 1 rand short. Of course I totally forgot they serve beer and wine for free on international flights. And good beer on German flights (Lufthansa). It did help me sleep a little, except I'm I a sucker for watching stupid movies on planes. I watched two of them. I forget which ones they were.

Frankfurt airport was weird in that I had to pass through two security checks. Talk about inefficient. Then in the boarding area, they booted us out (I was sleeping on the chairs) so that they could check our passports and re-enter the boarding area to wait another 30 minutes before boarding. After four hours there, I was on my way home. This time I just slept, ate, or read my book which I didn't touch the whole trip. It was a more comfortable trip for some reason even though the seats were exactly the same as the flight before. Someone told me Lufthansa was a good airline. It seemed pretty old school with TV monitors on the ceiling vs. in the headrests on the United and South African overnight flights. (note to self for next time). I will say I was quite pleased that all my bags made it to SFO without delay. My Dad picked me up and gave me a lift home. There I slept another 16 hours until it was Tuesday morning.

Winetasting in Stellenbach

On Sunday morning Stefan, my new Belgium and South African friends all said our goodbyes. It was a strange feeling actually not having to rush and get on our bikes but that things were coming to an end. No more suffering and no more racing to talk about at the end of the day. Somehow I know I will remain in touch with everyone I met. How could I not? You develop so much camaraderie with the other riders in enduring such an event.

The rest of the day Jim, JD, and I pretty much tooled around the Stellenbach area on a wine tasting quest. It was not only the first day I actually felt like I was a tourist but one on vacation. We ended up at one winery where we did a little fine dining. When that food wasn't enough we went into town for crepes/pancakes, coffee, and ice cream. We attempted to hit up another couple wineries but by then they were all closed. So then we went back to the resort to drink beers before heading out for dinner downtown Stellenbach at a place called The Fishmonger. We were the last customers and for the second straight night, just gorged ourselves with food. (Our appetites were pretty ferocious after 9 days of caloric debt!)
After dinner Jim was ready to go clubbing but I told him things would be dead since it was Sunday night. In reality, I was starting to come down with a cold.(what a surprise!) It was a bit chilly during our celebration dinner and perhaps the extra alcohol consumption didn't help my immune system either. Sorry Jim. Not typical of me to pass up a chance to check out the scene and have a few more. I think JD gets equal blame since he wanted to (or had to) get up early for his safari travel.