After nearly 48 hours of traveling from Key Biscayne to Cape Town, South Africa, we picked up the car we had rented and located the home we had leased for the summer. Thanks to the GPS Joyce had purchased and beaten into submission before we left, we were expertly guided to our new abode in the village of Fish Hoek on False Bay, about half an hour from the center of Cape Town.

Fish Hoek (Fish Corner in Afrikaan) is one of the many towns and villages that dot the 25 or so mile-long peninsula that extends, finger-like, from “Devil’s Peak” near the center of Cape Town to “Cape Point”, better known as the “Cape of Good Hope” or “Cabo da Boa Esperanca”, as the Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Dias called it in 1488 when he first rounded the Cape. False Bay,  thusly named because Bartholomeu thought he had circled the Southern tip of Africa when, in fact, all he found was this immense bay (you were right, Tom!), is an immense, 50 or more mile wide body of water that looks and acts like the ocean but is really a very large bay. The bay is surrounded by steep mountains and escarpments that link up with the famous “Table Mountain”. The latter rises to above 3,000 feet and is the most significant geographic feature in the region.

The peninsula would be somewhat reminiscent of Cape Cod if it weren’t for the 1,200 foot high rocky spine that links up with Table Mountain, which runs along its center. This mountainous spine provides the settings for the fishing villages and other habitats built around False Bay. The effect is charming beyond description, as carpets of homes, fisheries, ports, shops and restaurants all cascade from the escarpments down to the edge of the Bay.

Beyond the spectacular geography of its location, we are only about 30 minutes from the airport and the famous Victoria and Alfred Waterfront shopping and entertainment area. The wine country is not much farther; the glitzy Camps Bay area on the Atlantic Ocean is equally easy to reach, as are the various shopping centers which we are trying out one by one.

Fish Hoek is located at the mid point of the peninsula, almost equidistant between Cape Point at the South and the Center of Cape Town at the North. The village has all the necessary conveniences; supermarkets, banks, drycleaner, beauty shop, small eateries, internet cafes, etc. and everything from parking and traffic controls to commercial activities is extremely casual. Within about two miles of Fish Hoek, there are two neighboring villages. One is Kalk Bay, where we buy our fresh fish, as it is an important fishing and antiques center. It is also the home of the “Harbor House” a superb eatery where one can consume crayfish the size of lobsters next to a roaring fire while watching huge waves crash against the rocks and boulders of the False Bay shore. The other village is Simon’s Town, which adjoins a small naval base, is full of gifts shops, serves the best breakfast in Cape Town and has a wonderful French restaurant called “Bon Appetit”, which would earn at least one Michelin star if the rating service would come this far. We had a splendid meal there that rivaled some of the best we‘ve encountered during our travels. Simon’s Town is also the jumping off point for all sorts of aquatic excursions ranging from fishing, to whale watching to shark encounters.

Our home in Fish Hoek is a duplex which occupies the top half of a large three-story, two family villa. It is perched on a hillside with 180 degree views of False Bay. It’s even better than the internet photos that had lured us to rent it – it can be accessed directly from the two-car garage, which opens directly into our kitchen and living/dining area, thus easing the usually cumbersome process of bringing in supplies and groceries, particularly during inclement weather. The kitchen is well equipped with the usual stuff. Peter was thrilled to see that it contained a built-in indoor “braai” (barbeque) which he had to try out to Joyce’s exasperation, even before the unpacking was done. The next day, other priorities notwithstanding, he rushed to the nearest book store to buy a South African Braai cookbook. This purchase proved providential when, a week or so later, he was called upon to prepare a dinner for seven for our prospective safari companions…but more about that later.

There is fireplace in the living room, but for some reason it is inoperative. The entire length of the first floor area measures about fifty feet and is covered with the glass of three large sliding doors that open on to a terrace. A portion of this terrace is fully glass-enclosed. Since we face east, the morning sun illuminates and warms the house with incredible brilliance. This provides a welcome contrast to the chill that tends to envelop our perch during the long nights.

Below the living level there are four bedrooms; three with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the Bay. We have two full baths in the sleeping areas and a half bath in the upstairs living quarters. The fact that we sleep and bathe below the living area is a little strange for us, and makes for some confusion for those of us who suffer from mild dyslexia. But we are getting quite used to this upside down world where it’s winter in July and where the fast lane on roads is on the right side!

False Bay is known for its whales, and our house is ideally situated to observe them romping right below us. They live here during the winter months (July and August), and sleep on the rocks right off our balcony! The surf splashes dramatically on the shore some 100 or more feet below, and the promise that lots of whales are expected to make their appearance has forced us to peek over the railing a hundred times a day to see if they are here yet.

We enjoy our glassed in terrace enormously. We have our cocktails there in the in the afternoon and “brekky” in the morning. We are told unequivocally that the whales will show up by August and carry on in our watery backyard until we’re sick of them. Although there have already been some sightings in a neighboring village, we have not spotted any as of yet…although we did see some turbulence one evening in the otherwise placid waters below our balcony. So we are full of expectations, as it is still July and we are keenly aware that August is approaching.

Once we had decompressed from the thrill of blasting through the air in a pressurized metal tube, and once we had settled in, we needed a good three days to get all the electronics to work. The internet still stubbornly refuses to fully cooperate - dial-up is impossible to use - it takes 10 minutes to load the CNN homepage trying to get to the internet; and for receiving e-mails, given the amount of spam and the photos therein, forget it!  But there is an internet cafe 5 minutes from here with really great cappuccino, so Joyce will survive. Moreover, we do get all our e-mails immediately with the Blackberry, but photos and attachments need to wait until we can get to the café.

We’ve only thoroughly explored our side of the False Bay coast so far - there are so many amazing restaurants within a ten minute drive up and down the coast road, and adorable little villages with quaint shops.  But the food and wine has been our main focus!  The restaurants all specialize in local seafood, with crayfish (a/k/a rock lobster - but think Maine lobster in size, texture and sweetness, not New Orleans crayfish), Langoustine, Tiger Prawn, Oysters, Calamari and Mussels everywhere! Oh, and one of the largest colonies of African Jackass Penguins live about 15 min. south of us at Boulders Beach - together with possibly the best restaurant (they don’t serve Penguin stew) we’ve found yet - what a treat!

We explored the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront and its malls and restaurants (just like Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco - once is probably enough), getting there via a drive along the Atlantic coastal communities where we had first considered renting.  The drive to the other side was amazing - having just re-visited Big Sur in May, there is no doubt that the California coast pales in comparison to the drive across Chapman’s Peak.  While we didn’t spend any time in the beachfront communities - Camps Bay, Clifton and Bantry Bay - they are gorgeous but very much the South Beach/Ocean Drive area of Cape Town, compared to False Bay, which is more like Key Biscayne during the 60’s and 70’s before the new bridge and all the chi-chi new homes and condos.

As to the wine … Peter is so astonished and, dare we say it, as a proud Frenchman - threatened - by South African wines that he has taken a vow to single-handedly rid the world of the curse of these amazingly inexpensive wines … one bottle at a time!! Having had the opportunity to sample the products of the region, Peter has reached a few conclusions. Here they are:

•    Generally the whites are better than the reds;
•    Peter’s order of preference among the whites is Sauvignon Blanc at the top, followed by the Chardonnays, with the Chenin Blancs emerging as the least favorite;
•    The reds are superb as well, but some of the Pinotage based wines tend to be a bit harsh; the Shiraz wines are the harshest of all; but a Pinotage/Merlot blend can produce some very pleasant results;
•    We encountered one of the best reds ever, which Peter would recommend if it can be found. The name is Meer Lust Rubicon and we are going to visit the winery as soon as we find an opening in our busy schedule.

We had learned that Bastille Day is big here, and that Franschoek, a small town in the wine region near Cape Town, is an important place where the celebration of the event assumes its own life. The town is interesting and quite unique.  It is very French in character, having been settled by some 200 Huguenots who migrated to Africa to escape the French persecutions of Calvinist Protestants in the 17th Century. Franschoek is located near Stellenbosch, the capital of the wine region. But, given its French antecedents, it is considered the gastronomical center of the region. And so, when we took a day drive into the wine region, we reserved a room for Bastille Day at the Quartier Francais, a very tawny Relais & Chateau in the middle of town, so that we could celebrate July 14 in style.

During our second week, our friends Nancy & Floyd Denison arrived, accompanied by their friends Katherine and Clay Stoddard, as well as Ron Magill, the flamboyant Director of Communication for Miami’s MetroZoo and its Ambassador, with or without portfolio, throughout the animal world. Ron, on this occasion bore the title of guide and impresario for the first safari of our trip. Prior to leaving on safari, Ron got us back into the wine region, where he had arranged for us to visit “Cheetah Outreach”, where the owner hand raises cheetah cubs and “trains” them to become ambassador for zoos and related institutions. MetroZoo’s own King George and Savannah were trained here.  The “Outreach” is located on the grounds of the Spier Winery, but nobody paid attention to that…except Peter, of course. The cheetah cubs were the main attraction. We played for nearly two hours with four of the most unimaginably cute and irresistibly amusing two month old cubs, thoroughly enjoying ourselves while, at the same time, performing a valuable service – helping to habituating the cubs to human company.

The arrival of our friends and safari companions triggered Peter’s visceral hosting urges. It was an opportunity to test our ability to entertain in this far-away land. Indeed, it was a test of fire … literally, as we decided to braai everything: mussels for starters, kigclip (a popular boneless fish which is actually a sort of eel) and local crayfish (really small lobsters) toped off with baked apples for dessert. Our guests were delighted. However, as we polished off about ten bottles of wine, everybody was either so drunk or otherwise engrossed in conversation that the salad was left untouched. The same fate befell the Boerswurst and the Pommes Lyonnaise that were to have constituted the third course of the repast.

On the second night of their arrival, we made reservations for the entire group at “Madame Zingara” for dinner and fascinating “Cirque du Soleil” style entertainment. The restaurant is as famous as it is unique. It all takes place under a large circular tent where guests sit at long, communal tables and are served a copious, and surprisingly tasty, meal – oh yes, along with copious amounts of wine.

In our case, another couple was added to our table, and they sat with us throughout the meal and the show, exchanging only perfunctory pleasantries, as they seemed very much taken with each other. As the circus acts ended and the entertainment morphed into dancing and disco, we noticed that the male half of the couple had disappeared, leaving the female, who introduced herself as Carmen, all alone.  This would have brought tears to the eyes of any sympathetic soul, were it not for the fact that Carmen had fallen passionately in love with our gorgeous long-legged red head, Nancy Denison, and the two were furiously undulating on the crowded dance floor to the rhythm of the disco beat. Floyd was imperturbable, as he had long been busy doing his own thing on the dance floor with the gorgeous female acrobats. Poor Nancy, as the rest of us never let go of this hilarious scene during the next week we spent together (minus Carmen of course) on safari.

And finally, a word about driving in South Africa - for many reasons, mainly Peter’s capacity – and desire - to accommodate a much greater amount of wine than Joyce, she has become the designated driver for all occasions.  Driving on the “wrong” side of the road is quite intimidating, but with a constant flow of prompts from the passenger seat on how to turn right (the tricky one), moving towards the center so that we don’t destroy the side-view mirrors from some unsuspecting parked car, and the GPS (amazing - how did we ever drive in a new city without it?), we’re unscathed so far.  As humiliating as it may have been for Joyce, she was forced to put aside her Porsche-powered driver’s ego and finds that the most comforting time behind the wheel is when she is following someone – then she knows for sure that she is on the correct side of the road - particularly after executing a right turn!

It would be presumptuous to expound on the culture and politics of South Africa at this early point in our visit. As a thumbnail, one needs to realize that the complexities are subtle. Apartheid went out of existence in the early nineties and Mandela is now cherished as a national hero. Yet blacks here seem to fare poorly compared to the US, there are still prominently displayed signs on the threshold of eating and hospitality establishments that assert the owner’s right to deny service or access, and as one drives through the region, vast territories are taken up with shantytowns that suggest horrendous living conditions.

While the culture is clearly English, the Boer and Dutch heritage shines through unabashedly. This can be seen everywhere - in the street names, the names of towns and villages and many of the businesses. It is interesting to note that, like Sri Lanka, the Portuguese were here first. But they found the place inconvenient to settle yet useful as a fleet restocking port. Eventually, they let the place go, but not without a struggle, to the Dutch. The Dutch East India Company took over and established a permanent and fortified refreshment post for its fleets traveling to and from the Far East in 1652. Shortly thereafter, European settlers began to establish farms on land that had previously been the grazing grounds of Khoikhoi herdsmen who were the original inhabitants of the area. By the time that Britain acquired full control of the region in 1806, there were already a considerable number of European colonists settled in the gradually expanding Cape Colony, mainly of Dutch, German and French origin. In search of pasture for their growing herds, these farmers (the “Boers” or “Afrikaners”, as they began to call themselves) penetrated ever deeper into the interior of the present day South African provinces of the Western, Eastern and Northern Cape.

The architecture and the detailing of building facades reflect this Dutch heritage, and so do the names of streets and communities. As the Dutch influence was felt with the agrarian settlements of the Boers, the language morphed into Afrikaans, which is neither German nor Dutch, as it derives from the much earlier Khoikhoi culture that preceded the European explorations. Nor did the British, who fought the Boers, the Zulus, the Hottentots and the Bushmen among others, make any contribution to the Afrikaans language. They took over as the dominant culture in the region, extending their Commonwealth into Africa with a vengeance (think Michael Caine in his red coat and white helmet fighting the Zulu!).

And so English is the official language, and driving on the left side of the road is the current order of the day. But hearing a lot of Afrikaans spoken, and the all too recent memories of Apartheid are constant reminders of the strangeness that lies below the comforting similarities of our respective cultures.

Somehow, we’ve managed to stay incredibly busy. But we’ve only grazed the surface. We’re off next week on safari in Zambia to chase the wild beasties; Joyce with her camera and me with my naked eyeballs. When we return, we will focus on the sites of the Western Cape, so there will be a second installment to this exposure to Cape Town and also perhaps a different perspective on the place. So, stay tuned.