9/21- we left the hotel in Cape Town at 9:00 and headed for wine country, or the winelands as they call it here. We had to drive through Cape Town first and saw a lot of their shanty towns. One section was so large it houses 1.2 million people. It's really sad to see the conditions they live in. Then as we got out of town and more towards the country it was beautiful. We stopped in Stellenbosch and walked around the town a little bit. I found a great little store with men's clothing and we bought a bunch of clothes for Larry. After that we stopped for our first wine tasting. We did a wine and chocolate pairing and it was quite good. The next vineyard we went to only makes red wines...our kind of winery! We did a tasting of 7 different wines. I didn't care for the first three too much but the last four were much better. Then we drove to another vineyard for lunch. The restaurant was very nice and the food was outstanding. I had enough wine at this point so passed on the wine. We had planned on going to one more vineyard but it was already 3:00 and we decided to just come to our hotel. It was about a 45 minute drive to the town of Franschhoek. Our hotel is on a wine farm with vineyards and a huge plum orchard. They also have springbok, ponies, and peacocks. The view from our room is beautiful. They greet us at the car with glasses of wine and then in our room they have a chilled bottle of champagne and four or five other bottles of wine for us. When we get back home we aren't going to be drinking for some time. My liver could use a detox! We had a great dinner in front of the fireplace. It's a little chilly here. 

9/22- today was the day to sleep in! We had no schedule and no set plans. I guess the peacocks and ducks didn't get the message about sleeping in because they were up with the sun. I managed to stay in bed until 7:00 but don't think I slept much past 6:00. It was quite foggy in the morning and we couldn't even see the mountains. Around noon we decided to go into town so had the hotel drop us off. It's pretty small but there are quite a few shops and a lot of restaurants. After checking out all of the shops we had lunch and then had the hotel come and pick us up. All of the fog and clouds had cleared and it was a beautiful day. Back at our room we sat out on our deck and had a glass of champagne. It was a quiet afternoon, except for the peacocks, and then back out to the deck for the sunset and some wine. We went for dinner at 7:00 but decided to sit by the fire and have a glass of wine first, I know that's a lot of wine for the day hence the detox when I get home. We're in wine country so can't really pass it up. Anyway, three ladies came in and asked if they could join us. We had a really nice visit with them. They all live in Cape Town now but were originally from Australia and Hong Kong. We all shared a lot of travel stories and it was a lot of fun. Dinner was great as usual and now I'm ready for bed. It's our last night in Africa and I'm really sad about it. I could easily spend another month here. Not looking forward to spending tomorrow night on an airplane!

9/23- we were up with the birds again around 6:00. It is our last day in Africa. It is a beautiful clear day and we can see the mountains completely surrounding us. It's spring and everything is so green and in bloom. We didn't have to leave for the airport until 2:45 but we decided to just hang out at the hotel and enjoy the view and relax. The peacocks put on a show for us. The male peacocks are trying to attract the females by showing off their tail feathers in quite a show and then he sits back and watches the females fight over him. It was such a beautiful day that it made it even harder to leave. We did a lot of reminiscing about our time in Africa and wish it didn't have to end. Our flight to Dubai is 9 1/2 hours and we arrive at 5:30 am. I slept about 2 hours....not good!