Stellenbosch
Trip Start
Jun 08, 2008
1
26
28
Trip End
Aug 15, 2008
Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Dinner last night was a resounding success - and not just because of my chicken, which was as good as usual. But the dishes prepared by the other guests were equally good: Flavored rice with sun-dried tomatoes and pumpkin seeds prepared by the Dutchies and broccoli baked with cheese on top by Muriel, along with her South African-style pumpkin. It was all washed down by one of the more palatable red wines I have ever drunk: a 7-dollar, 3-liter no-name South African wine in a carton. Who says good wine has to be expensive? Well, the Thai authorities, for one. In Thailand, even a bad wine would have cost twenty times as much. Anyway, maybe it's better that wine is so expensive in Thailand. If it were as good and cheap there as it is here in South Africa, I might have ended up on skid row.
After a leisurely shower, breakfast and packing, Muriel dropped me off at the bus stop at 10:00 for my 10:20 departure. I expected the bus to be somewhat late as I was on the same bus last Friday morning and we arrived in Knysna about a half an hour late due to road works. But this bus was a full hour and a half late! Shameful. The worst part was not knowing if it is even going to come. And even though the bus company had my mobile phone number (and the numbers of all their passengers), do you think they bothered to call and inform us of this delay? Of course not. It was a missed opportunity to win back the goodwill lost by the delay.
The ride was long, somewhat picturesque but very tiring. And unlike on my Nomad tour, which seemed to stop just when I needed to use the toilet, this bus had a knack for stopping an hour after I needed the toilet.
The most interesting part of the ride for me was my conversation with the bus driver, who sat in the seat behind me for a rest during his break. (They drive in shifts as it is a long drive.) This driver had only joined the company three months ago after having worked as a prison guard for sixteen years. He had some pretty scary stories to tell about his time in the prison system. He (a 40-year old white Afrikaaner) told me that he thinks there will be a war soon in South Africa. When I asked him between whom, he nodded his head in the direction of a couple of blacks on the bus and said "Between them and us. They are ruining the country." Quinton, my driver for the previous tour, suggested that the problems in South Africa stem from the past mistreatment of blacks by whites, as well as the lack of education of the blacks, which can be remedied by, well, educating them. And while many blacks must be frustrated and feel justified in living lives of crime against whites, they are in fact harming themselves in the long run because this high criminality discourages tourism and investment. It's easy for me to tell people that they shouldn't steal when they are hungry and I'm not (actually I am hungry right now, but that's another matter.) But I really don't think that a stable society can be built on crime. (I know, that's a perceptive observation.) In any case, crime here is pervasive and palpable - and I for one won't be coming back anytime soon. While there are few places in the world as lovely and worth visiting as South Africa, there are even fewer places where visiting is as risky.
We arrived in Somerset West at 18:40, at which point it was necessary for me to transfer to a shuttle to reach Stellenbosch. At shortly after 19:00 we arrived in town and the shuttle driver dropped me off at Bird Street since I had told him that my hostel was on that street. I walked in the dark with all of my baggage - surely with a worried look on my face - until I found my hostel (iKhaya Backpackers) fifteen minutes later. The room was rather different from how I imagined it from the description in the guide book. I thought I would be getting my own bedroom and bathroom. In fact I do have my own bedroom, but I share the bathroom with a dorm room with seven beds. Luckily just one of those beds was occupied - by a young American woman who spent most of her time in the room because she had spent all of her money after having miscalculated her day of departure by one day. As she had spent the day cycling - and I the day on the bus, we were both exhausted and went to bed fairly early at 21:30, but not before I went out for a hamburger at a fancy restaurant. The hamburger turned out to be awful because they had put sugar in it! Lots of sugar! Disgusting. What were they thinking?
05 August - Stellenbosch
The numerous shortcomings of the layout of my accommodation have become apparent in the short time that I've been here. For example, someone joined our room (in the dorm section) at 4 am. Since he went to bed so late, of course he wanted to sleep late. But having gone to bed so early, I was up by 7:00. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, except that as soon as I exit my room to use the bathroom or the kitchen, I am in the dorm - disturbing the people sleeping there.
Other shortcomings include a light switch for my room that is outside of the room, meaning that I have to go out of the room to turn the light on or off. The switch is also right next to the switch for the bathroom light, which means that there is a very good chance that someone fumbling for the light switch for the bathroom in the middle of the night is very likely to turn on the light to my bedroom. Duh!
I went out at 7:30 to look for a supermarket to find things for breakfast. Fortunately there was a supermarket just around the corner from my hostel. Also fortunately, it opens at 8:00 every day of the week except one. Unfortunately today is that day! It opens at 9:00 on Tuesdays for some reason. They must have known I was coming. After a bit of asking around (at least everyone speaks English here), I was able to find a supermarket that opened at 8. After buying myself some bananas, fruit juice, milk and muesli, I went back to the room and had breakfast in my bedroom because I didn't want to disturb the people still asleep in the dorm.
I then went to the tourist information office to get a map of the town and to plan my strategy for the rest of my trip. I found out that it is possible to take a shuttle directly from my hostel to any hostel in Cape Town, so I will do that tomorrow. This will give me a full three days in Cape Town, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I had even considered not going there at all due to the fact that it is a big city that is bound to have more crime than the smaller places I have visited, which already have more than enough crime for my liking. But with this shuttle bringing me door to door, I can't resist the opportunity to spend my last days of this trip in Cape Town.
I bought myself some chicken, tater tots, cherry tomatoes and avocados and made myself a stuffer of a lunch, which I ate in the dining area of my room as everyone was awake by now.
The afternoon I spent walking around the beautiful university campus in Stellenbosch, reminiscing about the time when I was a student likewise ignored by the beautiful girls on the campus. Ah, the memories!
I also put my dirty clothes to soak. Normally I wouldn't wash them in a place where I have only one more night to stay as that usually wouldn't give them enough time to dry. But this time I have a secret weapon: The heater in my room! It works well enough that I'm sure I'll have my clothes dried up in no time - in spite of the cold weather. Sometimes I'm too smart for my own good. Ha!
In the late afternoon I took another walk around the town - and I have to say that it is really beautiful in some parts. Really classy. During my walk I came across my favorite type of store: a camping and outdoor goods store. There I found a special type of travel clothesline that I had been looking for for years. Since it was so nice, I bought two of them.
Back at the room in the evening I had dinner and finished drying my clothes by rotating each piece for a little time on the heater.
