Going off the Grid

Flying to Lusaka, Zambia in a couple hours. Then to Victoria Falls. Ether Zimbabwe or Botswana thereafter! (by bus) back to Joburg. I'm expecting things to go horribly, horribly wrong. That's all part of the fun.

Back March 28-29th ish

Class Field Trip

This past weekend my History of Southern Africa Class went on a field trip to a local historical sight near the Afrikaans town of Pniel, about an hour North East of Cape Town.

The "historical sight" happened to be located on a wine farm, Solms Delta.

Our tour consisted of a brief look at a couple old buildings on the farm as well as the vineyard. Then we settled down to the real business, free wine tasting.

Next stop was a short trip to the Church in Pniel, where us students, and the professor, were all inappropriately drunk while the Pastor gave a lecture on the town's history. I've never felt so sacrilegious before in my life.

The image is of the Church. The old slave bell can be seen at right.

Beer and Wine in South Africa

For those who are interested, here's a post on beer/wine in South Africa.

You've Got:
Castle
Black Label
Hansa.

These are all mediocre lagers produced by SABMiller (that's the American miller). SABMiller is about 90% of the market, so its pretty much a monopoly.

There are also some others, but South Africa has no microbrewery movement like that in the States or Europe.

Windhoek, a Namibian lager
Mitchell's (hard to find)
Savanah hard apple cider
Amstel Light
Heineken
Dreher

That's about it.

Then there's wine, which you can pick up for as low as 14R a bottle (a little under $2!) As a rule of thumb when buying cheap wine, the more Afrikaans and less English on the bottle, the better.