Garden Route, relaxing on the coast

Continuing on updating you from last week...after the wine country, we meandered our way to the southern coast, stopping to put our toes into the ocean for the first time, and staying at what was probably the best hostel we've seen from a quality standpoint: the Wilderness Beach House located in Wilderness, S.Africa. A pic from our balcony!:










and our romantic walk on the beach:















After spending the night there, we headed on to Knysna, which is a very nice city on a gorgeous lagoon. And, as we came to learn, a great boat dock for all those Cape Town rich people with yachts:












On the way there, we stopped to do a canoe/hike in Wilderness National Park. The trail was...lets just say it wasn't marked, as at one point we were sticking to the side of a tall river bank (think Spiderman). Oh, and to get to our canoe we had to walk through water (again). But the view was definitely worth it!





















In Knysna, we took the time to chill out and went for a run in the morning, had some alone time, and then went to Mitchell's Brewery and did a tour of their microbrewery. Apparently one of the best microbrews in S.Africa...we'd tend to agree! The tour was fun and we also met a woman from Zimbabwe and her husband, who were telling us about Zimbabwe and how different it is than S.Africa. And how crazy the inflation is (Purvi's new mission is to get a 1-trillion dollar note from Zimbabwe).

Currently we are in Swaziland, and our next post will include pics from the bungee jump that Purvi didn't do, a rainbow over the Indian Ocean at Chintsa, adventures in Durban, and our thoughts/pics on Swaziland. We'll update from the flip side (once we're in Maputo, Mozambique, with better internet).

Wine Country & pics

Sorry its been a while since we last posted, but quite honestly we've been taking it easy this week in anticipation for our next few weeks coming up (lots of driving again, to Swaziland and Mozambique, then 2 safaris in a row). Here's what's been up:

-Wine Tasting...mmm. We went to 13 wineries in the South African Wine Country, and it was deee-licious. There are tons of wine routes and cities that people go to - we went to two of the main ones (Stellenbosch and Franschoek). And it was a gorgeous weekend to boot:













above: Goats DO Roam at the Fairview winery (our 2nd favorite as it included deeeeeelicious cheese tastings as well)
below: our favorite winery tasting: La Grande Provence in Franschoek. We are still trying to figure out how to get wine from there to take back.





















above: hilarity at the Lourensford Winery (what the heck is that little dude??)
below: Elaine golfs with Ernie Els at the Guardian Peak winery











































A special shout-out to Lyndon for driving us around Stellenbosch and showing us Hermanus as well!

Will write tomorrow about the Garden Route and other relaxing things about the week.