The long trip south

My journey started with a 7-hour bus ride to Cairo, which went surprisingly well despite the security checkpoint where everyone had to open their bags for the army. I met a guy from LA who just came from Israel, so the border police charged him $15 and gave him dirty looks because they hate Israel. I spent six hours in the airport, then got onto the plane only to have it delayed two hours. The worst part was that a lot of the Arabs on the plane stood up and yelled at the crew for the delay. I couldn´t believe they would be so rude. It was pointless to argue because they couldn´t do anything about it anyway. I talked to an Irish guy afterward and we shared our disbelief and agreed that that would not happend anywhere else. Well, maybe New York.

Once in Abu Dhabi at 11am, I booked a hotel room for the day so I could sleep until 6pm. Then I used their free Internet and killed four more hours. All the staff in the airport spoke very good English, and were much nicer than Egyptians. The flight to Johannesburg was 8 hours, but I just watched movies the whole time. From Johannesburg to Cape Town, most of the passengers got off the plane and no one else got on, so there was more than enough space. I enjoyed the view of South Africa for the 2-hour flight.

The woman at customs gave me a little trouble about the visa because I didn´t have a flight booked out of the country, but she gave up and just let me in anyway. My boss Marinus was waiting for me with the other intern, Lorena from Spain. She just finsihed her masters in wine making and was in Marlborough, New Zealand for the same harvest that I was. The drive out of Cape Town was gorgeous. The mountains are steep, made of a combination of granite, limestone, and sandstone, and still have some green on them. After we passed through a tunnel, I saw two babboons crossing the road, and wild ostriches. As we got closer to the winery, the landscape became more arid with sagebrush and small bushes. Robertson Valley gets about 10 inches of rain per year.

Marinus gave us an open invitation to his house, which is on the property and showed us to our rooms next to the cellar. That night was the blessing of the harvest, which was a fancy dinner and lots of wine. I fell asleep early because I had only got about 7 hours of sleep in the previous two days.