Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

South Africa - I arrived today. Relayed to the Windhoek airport(Jan-Linki-Mike), easy flight over the very very vast lands of Namibia and South Africa - to the beautiful city of Capetown - boxed in by the bay and Table Mountain, the city squeezing out to the wine country as the population grows. Corny and Adri picked me up (Corny De Villers is the Pres. of the Ground Jury, Adri is apprenticing for an FEI official) - loaded my stuff into Corny's aged (but still going strong) Mercedes, a smooth drive out of the city, past rows of shanty towns - truly nothing more than boxes and shacks where many of the blacks live. Apparently the government brought in thousands of impoverished blacks from neighboring countries in decades past to boost the population for a favorable vote (politics) - and now these people are still poor and disenfranchised and are voting against the government. (politics).

 It's beautiful countryside - once we got out of the city Corny drove us into the farm land - rolling green fields of wheat, canola and miles and miles of vineyards. On leaving the airport (within seconds of closing my door) Corny asked me 'so what do you like to drink?' - not even 'do you like to drink anything?'  - these folks seem to take their drinks and social time pretty seriously. So being a great fan of red wine, I was in luck - and the first stop we made was the Durbanville Winery - where we first tasted the 2004 wines - Shiraz, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pintage (a South African grape) - tough to choose, very very nice wines - but we setted on the Merlot and headed back into the countryside. More winding roads through beautiful rolling fields, and we arrived at Charmaigne's Eksteen's farm. Charmaigne is the organizer of the Saldanha ride. I'll be staying here tonight, then driving to Saldanha bay with the group tomorrow morning early.

Dinner (from Woolworths), drink and talk (Afrikaans and English) and early to bed tonight. I'll be taking pictures (and also riding!) and will try to send posts if I can, but the only internet will be from mobile phone modems - so I'm not sure how much (if any) I'll be able to do.

New adventure, new people - but these women are 'endurance' - the same around the world, and I felt immediately at home and comfortable with the chatter about horses and rides and FEI and all that stuff..

later-

 

Steph