It was hard getting up this morning. Not because we knew we had 22 hours of driving ahead of us or because of the screwdrivers and beer we had with our pizza last night, but because Cape Town is such a gorgeous city. Nevertheless, we were set on heading out so we could make it to Durban with time an extra day before our next game, Holland vs. Slovakia. Today was also the first day I saw Marcos get up on time and be ready to go on time, instead it was Micah who delayed us an hour. Unfortunately it took this long to realize the only thing that gets Cos out of bed is a deadline to watch the U.S. game.
Once we hit the road the Cape Town powers that be put an amazing Table Mountain sunrise on display for us. I’d asked Micah the other day if people who lived there ever became unimpressed at how amazing the scenery is in this city. His response, “That would be sad, if they did.”
First stop on our day long, literally, trip back to Durban was the Cape of Good Hope. We drove through some cool little beach towns to get there, some had houses on hillsides which had me thinking they’d make the perfect office for a writer. But, considering I haven’t written my New York Times Bestseller yet I didn’t bother picking up any real estate pamphlets to see what housing prices were like. Once we got to the cape the fog had rolled in pretty thick and it was starting to rain; California rain, not Oregon rain. Due to time constraints and uncooperative weather we didn’t stay too long, just did the whole we came, we saw, we conquered sort of thing, then got back on the road.
After the Cape of Good Hope there was discussion of going to the southern most point of Africa, but it was going to be a two hour detour and Cos was adamant about not going. He wanted to be certain we’d be in Port Elizabeth so he could see the U.S. game at the fanfest zone by the stadium, regardless of me warning him it was supposed to be 50 and raining (fanfest zones are outdoors.)
Cape Town is South Africa’s equivalent to Napa Valley and wine tasting was something we’d thrown out as a thing to do prior to our arrival in the utopic city. As coincidence would have it, just as it randomly dawned on Micah that we’d failed to do this we were coming upon a nice looking winery with copious amounts of signage boasting about various awards won for their wines. We pulled in. The bartender (?) who was telling us about each wine, though he repeatedly claimed, “I know nothing about wine, I’m just a farmer who likes to drink,” insisted today was a red wine kind of day, not white and proceeded to pour us samples of each of their reds. Once we’d tasted each and ran out of jokes he mentioned the white wines, then reached for a bottle of Captain Morgan. Only being about two hours in to our twenty-two hour drive I cashed in my chips and took a rain check, my entourage did the same.
After we cleaned them out of what they had for sale we went to get back on the road only to find the souvenirs we were slowly accumulating had taken over our trunk space and we were now going to have to make room for the arsenal of wine we’d just purchased. Luckily one of the things taking up a large amount of space was the Roman’s Pizza box containing the leftovers from last nights ‘zza. Having inquired to the rest of the guys if there was a hunger in the land every fifteen minutes for the previous two hours, and always ending up being the only one hungry, I dug in. Micah and Marcos were quick to join in on my trunk pizza feed and as I was simultaneously enjoying my slice and the landscape I realized the family sitting on the patio of the winery’s kitchen was staring at us. I was quite relieved when Micah mentioned they were all staring at us as I realized it was in fact the case and they wine hadn’t just gotten to my head, I was the driver after all. Then we heard their little kids saying, “mommy they have pizza,” “I want some of their pizza,” “why can’t we have pizza.” And the whole while the parents were looking at us like they wanted to kill us. I’m guessing the kids had been complaining they were hungry for longer than the last two hours and more often than every fifteen minutes.
We got Marcos to Port Elizabeth with over an hour to spare and as the weather had predicted, it was raining. Proper rain, not California rain. Micah had spent the previous two hours or so behind the wheel and later admitted that was the most stressful driving he’d ever done. Fog, monsooning rain, and poor lane reflectors made it difficult for him to follow the road. We did the typical no one makes a decision on where or what to eat thing, wasting the extra hour we had, before I picked a pub and we tracked it down. It was a small place, and so thick with cigarette smoke my eyes started burning, but they had the U.S. game on and 350-gram burgers, which were delicious.
At half time we split for the fan zone and got in just after the kickoff for the second half. The Yanks battled it out for 90 minutes and the game ended drawn at one a side. Since it’s now the first round of knock out stages that meant they went to overtime. Ghana scored three minutes in to overtime and the U.S. wasn’t able to level it back out. Considering Ghana is the only African team left in the tournament, the small handful of other people battling the rain (which had now eased up to a California rain) were going crazy.
This is when the real fun started. It was now past 11 p.m. and we had an eleven hour drive ahead of us.
Added one photo to the Cape Town album and some more to the random South Africa album.
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