Cape Town Part II: Work Hard, Play Hard

So yesterday I took a dog for a walk for the first time, I also jumped out of a plane at 9000 feet.  No biggie, just casually launched myself out of a fast moving metal sardine can so I could free fall through the air with a strange South African man called Randy. Words cannot describe the feeling. Just brilliant.

The last couple of days have been a heady mixture of  volunteering and sightseeing. The volunteer group took me to the school they work at which is mainly attended by kids from the Du Noon township. The classes are huge, with roughly sixty kids per class it’s difficult to see how they learn much. However at least they are in school and thanks to volunteer programs, have regular teachers. The kids are probably the friendliest children I’ve ever met, you don’t need to earn their love, you instantly have it as you are swamped by six or seven wanting to play with your hair or get their picture taken with you.

In the afternoon the volunteers often take the kids for swimming and surfing lessons. Swimming is such a valuable life skill for kids that live so close to the sea. Both the volunteers and the children have a cracking time, even if everyone had turned blue in the FREEZING pool. Contrary to what many may think Cape Town is not altogether that warm…in fact the wind can make it pretty darn chilly. So even though I’m persevering with shorts (I mean c’mon I’m in Africa bru!) I don’t think I’ll be getting much of a tan here. Well to be honest probably won’t get much of a tan anywhere, white red white seems to be the set routine God blessed me with. CHEERS MATE.

Of course it’s not all work work work, oh no everyone sure knows how to party. All 15 hostel members go out quiiite a bit and ALL the girls in the hostel are blonde. And lets face it blondes do have the most fun…However it’s possibly not the greatest idea having a heavy night when you have a full day of wine touring the next morning…

So I may have started the wine tour already drunk, well you know, these things happen. And this seemed to be the order of the day because boy do you taste a lot of wines! We tried about eight glasses of wine at each of the five farms we visited. Now you may think this would make me some what of a connoisseur. And yes at the beginning I was tasting the subtle differences in the 2010 Sauvingnon blanc and the 2011 Sauvingnon blanc. However by the end my pallet had taken quite a hit and white wine very much tasted like white wine.  Although I am now a fan of Merlot; a  ‘feminine’ or ‘girly’ red as my tour guide strongly informed me. After a rather embarrassingly long hug with the tour guide and two bottles of wine gripped firmly in hand I glided back into the hostel.

Yes it sure has been a busy couple of days but now I must sadly love and leave Cape Town as I head onto my next utterly jawesome adventure with the sharkies!