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Escaping winter @ SA

January - February 2024
A 31-day adventure by Virág Read more
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  • TravelerEscaping winter @ SA
    Day 1

    Amsterdam-Cape Town-Paarl, here we go

    January 20 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 35 °C

    After flying through the whole world in a straight line from Amsterdam to Cape Town and coughing my soul out during the flight, I found my dear friend, Anna, at the airport who just finished off 10 days of horse riding in SA & Botswana ready to relax with me as her last etap of her trip. As we had no time to waste, we headed right away to the wine region to conquer as a start. 🍇🍷🐎Read more

  • TravelerEscaping winter @ SA
    Day 2

    Babylonstoren, wine heaven

    January 21 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

    Since we arrived late night to our accomodation, we only realized the beauty of de Leeuvenhof estate in the morning. We felt at home right away, especially because it was only Dutch people and us staying here, home sweet home. 😂🇳🇱 A must-do in the wine region is to take the wine tram which is basically a hop-on hop-off tram riding among vineyards = a day of heavy drinking we thought it’s smarter to keep that one to our second day and spend our first day at one highly recommended vineyard, called Babylonstoren. Honestly, this place is just something else, it has it all: beautiful scenery, it’s an eco farm, they produce everything for themselves, amazing food, even more amazing wine. We couldn’t help ourselves and went for a wine tasting of seven types of wine and a meat-cheese charcuterie, my gosh - it was pure heaven. 🤩✨ Here we already noticed the kindness of South Africans but had no idea what crazy stories we will end up with in a week’s time. 👀 The “light & simple” dinner we spent at the estate so that we can jump to bed on time and be ready for the tram at 10.30 am, especially because at this point my voice decided to leave me behind for the second time this year. 🥲Read more

  • TravelerEscaping winter @ SA
    Day 3

    Franschhoek, we did get on the wine tram

    January 22 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    Exciting day today, time for the much-recommended wine tram to explore the best wines and vineyards. There are tons of routes so to make things simple we chose a route recommended by a friend who recently visited SA, the red line with bus first. We first hopped on a wine-tram-looking bus as it was easier to reach some vineyards with that and arrived to our first destination, Haute Cabrière that is a family-owned estate established back in 1694 famous for their Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. As it was only 11 am at the point, we decided to go for some whites & bubbles tasting and very quickly concluded that we are not Chardonnay girls. 😅 Which is not really a problem until the most casually dressed guy shows up at your table being curious about your experience and when you admit this revelation he turns out to be the owner of the estate. 😂 Lucky us, Takuan, the owner was up for the challenge, so he took us down to the cellar and gave us his best wines and even ended up transforming our wine-tram-experience into a vineyard-hopping, driving us around the region, giving us the real experience and insight of a wine expert and extremely fun guy, and even arranged an off-menu dinner for us in his favorite restaurant. 😇✨ We never made it back to the wine tram, but our experience could have not been more authentic and fun!!! 🤩Read more

  • TravelerEscaping winter @ SA
    Day 4

    Cape Town, new city-new friends

    January 23 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    As per usual, we started off with a walking tour upon arriving to Cape Town so that we can get to know the city and its history quick & dirty. Unfortunately our tour guide was a bit too knowledgable and didn’t have the best story-telling skills but it was a nice intro to the city anyway. In short: loads of history and past & current social and economical struggles. Two fun stories for the day.
    1. On our first night I was swiping through instagram when I saw that a lovely friend of mine who was already featured in the South-Central America trip Penguins edition as I know her from Puerto Escondido is renting out her room for a few weeks back in Amsterdam, so I texted her jokily if she’s in South Africa. Well, guess what, yepppp. So we met Maartje in Cape Town, and we’ll be making memories together with her too - what a small world. ✨🌏
    2. After watching the sunset, we decided to check out one of the 100+ spots I pinned in South Africa for dinner. Not only the food and cocktails were excellent in Tjing Tjing, we escaped to the rooftop area from the heat where some kind strangers offered us a spot at their table. Well, these kind strangers turned out to be local “celebrities” too, we seem to attract the cream of people over here 😂 Reyno, the crazily impressive PR smile, is a Royal Genie who is the face of the most luxurious yachts of the world and introduced them when the ride for the first time. Nina co-owns a super cool restaurant called Black Sheep and a bar, Dark Horse. And Andro is a very popular and much appreciated private pedetrican. Turns out, Reyno was in town and they were having their reunion as being brothers and sisters, and got so excited to meet us that we agreed to have a little roadtrip tomorrow to meet the penguins and maybe make our way until Cape Point, the most southwestern part of the world. 🤩 Unbelievable!!!    Read more

  • TravelerEscaping winter @ SA
    Day 5

    Boulders Beach-Cape Point, the roadtrip

    January 24 in South Africa ⋅ 🌬 18 °C

    So, Reyno, our new friend from last night, didn’t disappoint and obviously forgot that he promised to take us around the peninsula (which is totally understandable considering the amount of alcohol consumed by them last night haha), so we had to improvise, no problem! 😂 We started off with a beautiful breakfast at a beautiful place and rebooted our plan for the day. ✨ Since ubers are the most common form of transportation here and super cheap, we decided to head to Boulders Beach anyway to find some cute penguins - and we did, not one or two, but quite a dozen, cute little things. 🤩🐧 Still hungry for adventure, we got another uber to take us to Cape Point to check out the most southwestern point of the world. When we got there our driver warned us that it’s very difficult to get an uber out there or impossible even so that it would be best if he waits for us and then takes us back to Cape Town. The price was a little too high (still reasonable though) so we decided to risk it anyway - of course. 😂 We got there super late and totally unprepared, we were in our beach clothes, super hungry, and the funicular wasn’t working so we thought we would have to walk up in the extreme wind. Lucky enough after stuffing ourselves with some sandwiches the funiculars started working again and we managed to arrange a minibus ride back to Cape Town with a driver who was there to replace the funicular taking people up and then, so he made easy money on us on his way home and we save 1000 rands, win-win I say! 🤩 The viewpoint was amazing except that we couldn’t spend more than 2 minutes up there without risking that we or our phones get blown off the cliff. 😅 Another day of spontaneous adventure: check ✅Read more

  • TravelerEscaping winter @ SA
    Day 6

    Table Mountain, a light morning hike

    January 25 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    If Anna didn’t have enough workout over her 10-day horse-riding trip, then she definitely did climbing the Table Mountain - just like me. 🥹 We were warned about some things about the hike, especially the safety and starting early, not so much the difficulty. Well, we had quite the hike. We started going up at 8.50 am together with many other hikers but apparently this was already too late. The strength of the sun is just something else here in SA, the trek was difficult on its own but the dry heat was just too much. We were going from shade to shade and took many breaks, only to enjoy the view, of course, not because we were on the verge of passing out. 😜 The 650 m ascent took us 2,5 hours but it was definitely worth every second of it and felt like a victory when we made it up. 🥳 At night we re-met our new friends and Nina managed to squeeze us in for dinner in her restaurant and we had the best food ever. 🤩 We closed the night off with a drink in her bar and called it a night after another long and fun day. 🥰Read more

  • TravelerEscaping winter @ SA
    Day 7

    Clifton 2nd-Waterfront, Anna’s last day

    January 26 in South Africa ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Today was Anna’s last day, after days and days of back and forth, she decided to go home and not extend her stay with a week or so. 🥲 We took the day very slow, breakfast in our favorite spot, Conscious Kitchen, then chill on the beach, then finishing it off with a walk around Waterfront (which is disturbingly touristy but we could see some seals from super close proximity) and managed to found the most local spot of the neighbourhood for a goodbye dinner. It was another day well spent, no crazy stories to report on besides having an hour of history class with chatGPT so that we finally got some proper insight into the upsetting past & present of South Africa. Anna, I’m gonna miss you! 🥹💛Read more

  • TravelerEscaping winter @ SA
    111
    Day 8

    Clifton 4-Lion’s Head, the city’s magic

    January 27 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    Not to despair: I’ve got myself a new travel buddy. 🤩 Thank you shitty winter weather in Amsterdam, that you destined us with Maartje to enjoy South Africa together!!! 🪐 We started the day off with a brunch in a local artsy spot with a vintage market, then headed to the beach, Clifton 4th this time, then after a short rest & shower sesh we headed up to Lion’s Head to watch the sunset. 🌄 Another time, we got some warnings to make sure that we are well prepared and luckily we decided not to bring the bottle of wine to enjoy on the top as the track where soon turned into rock-climbing, hanging on for our dear lives haha. The wind wasn’t as crazy as typically but this didn’t make the climb much easier. But the view… it was worth all the adrenaline boost on the way up and even more so on the way down. We just couldn’t get enough, had to stop every 5 meters for a next picture an d a next picture. Thank you nature for being so beautiful! 🥰 At night we went to town for a drink or two in one of the famous bars-clubs and hoped that we’ll manage to snooze in a little tomorrow morning. What a special day again! ✨Read more

  • TravelerEscaping winter @ SA
    Day 9

    Muizenberg, arrival & first day

    January 28 in South Africa ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C

    On Sunday I joined Maartje for her next destination, Muizenberg, which is known for its perfect waves for beginner surfers but also turned out to be a much-much more authentic, real side of CT. The first night we went out for dinner and had a very disappointing burger in a very cool place with great views, I don’t have any pictures, but if Maartje does, I will add an additional post. ✨ The second night turned out much more magical, after a full day of work, we went to Kalk Bay for dinner which was voted to be one of the coolest neighbourhoods by the Financial Times. The food & wine was delicious at Salt but the real magic only started after dinner: a full-blown double rainbow!!! Unbelievable, never saw something like this before 🤩🤩🌈🌈🌈Read more

  • TravelerEscaping winter @ SA
    Day 11

    Muizenberg-Kalk Bay, second day

    January 30 in South Africa ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    In the morning I walked from Muizenberg to Kalk Bay which is a very picturesque 40 min walk on the shore and spend the day working from Bob’s Bagel where the ladies behind the bar were listening to such amazing music that I had to ask and eventually one of them even offered to take me out and show me the nightlife of CT where I can listen to the local music. 🤩 After work I walked around the neighbourhood which is full of galleries and shops, had some mojitos in a Cuban bar which was so well decorated that it was a real throwback to my forever-love country. 😍 The food however didn’t look so nice so I was “forced” to go back to Salt for another round of good food & vibe. ✨ During dinner, guess what, I made some new friends who told me about a monthly event in CT, first Thursdays, which is a massive street festival held on every first Thursday of the month (hence the name 😜) and convinced me to go!!! I was contemplating to go with Maartje to Langebaan but I was already doubting as it’s quite far and is most known for kite-surfing so now I made up my mind: I will depart from Maartje and go back to town. ☀️Read more

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