I ended up staying Cape Town for all most two weeks. That probably tells you something about my opinion about the place. It is really good.
It was time to move on and I activated my Baz Bus – ‘hop on off’ bus ticket that would take me through to Durban. My first stop was Stellenbosch which is a university town only 120 klms or so from Cape Town.
The Baz Bus is service that is designed for backpackers. The advantage of the service is that it takes you from door to door i.e. from hostel to hostel. The disadvantage is that this involves a lots of individual pick-ups and drop offs – particularly in the big towns and cities.
It took us ages to leave Cape Town. The traffic is a really issue at the best of times. It was a real pain when it seemed that the twenty or so of the passengers were to be staying in and fifteen different hostels.
Into Stellenbosch
The Baz Bus stopped at a service station off the main highway. There we were met by another shuttle bus that took me and two Australian girls into Stellenbosch. The hostel that I had booked into was near to the university campus. It was simple but clean.
Walk around the town
I decided to have a slow day, checking out the town by foot.
Stellenbosch is a very pleasant place. The university dominates the town. There are London plain trees lining the streets. It is clearly very prosperous. There are a couple of streets, in particular that have lots of trendy cafes and restaurants.
I returned to the hostel and booked a wine tour for the next day.
When I told the staff that was heading into town for some dinner, they told me that I should take a taxi from the down town area to back to the hostel. I thought that was a bit odd as I had felt very safe walking around during the day. Unfortunately, this is the way it is in the RSA. You have to be careful at night.
Smoking in a Pub
I dropped into a pub for a beer before having some dinner. I was struck by the number of people that were smoking. I had encountered smoking in pubs in Cape Town. However virtually everyone seemed to be smoking in this place. It seemed so 1970’s and so 3rd world.
After dinner, I took an Uber taxi back to the hostel. It cost AUD 2.25. The driver seemed to be pleased with the fare.
Wine Tour
The next day I went of the wine tour. The South Africans call wineries, ‘wine farms’. I suppose that we have ‘wheat farms’, but it does seem a bit odd to call them ‘wine farms’.
The other people on the tour were two couples from Holland. They were very reserved to begin with. This slowly changed as the day progressed.
In all we went to six farms. They were all small family owned businesses. This is good to see. A couple had very impressive gardens and old buildings. The wines all seemed to be good to my taste and are really inexpensive.
Demonstration
I spent another day in Stellenbosch. As I walked through the university area, I came across a demonstration. They were Black students demonstrating about fees, lack of affordable accommodation and the use of Afrikaans in the university. This is big issue in the RSA.
Flickr Link
Link to the BBC on the Demonstrations
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35883919
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