A Beautiful Day for Vineyard Tours and Cheetah Petting

My first Saturday in Cape Town and boy was it eventful! Today was one of the most beautiful days in weather history (in my reconciliation lol).

First up, we left our apartments late this morning to head towards vineyard country: Franschhoek. We traveled a little over an hour to reach this quaint town with spanish style villas spread all over the vineyard countryside. It was just beautiful! Our vineyard, Haut Espoir (French for High Hopes), was at the very end of the road... and up a very steep hill. But the views were breathtaking. The owners showed us the land and gave us history on the names of the land, the soil, the troubles they are encountering and much more. After spending about 20 minutes in the land, we soon rushed to the store house! Our first bottle was a special white wine that was crisp and sweet. Then we headed into where they store the barrels of wine for years and drank red wine straight from the barrel! It was so delicious! They explained how to properly taste, how to tell if a wine is good, how to pull from the barrel... the ins and outs. It was so cool! They guy, Nikki, who is the owner and his signatures are on all the bottles, was a bit hard to understand, but he worked in California for a while so his whole life has revolved around wine making!

Well on our way out how could I pass up buying the cheap wine? So of course I bought 6 bottles of wine! But they are not for myself! It's for family and friends back home to have a taste of beautiful South Africa.

Here is a few pictures from the vineyard:

So, not unlike me, I had not eaten breakfast before drinking that wine (6 glasses to be exact) so we went into the cute little town to enjoy a quick lunch. Several of my friends and I ate at a small French bistro... yum! We hopped back on the bus a headed to Spier resort, which turned out to be awesome! 

At Spier, there was a cheetah conservation with 16 cheetahs total! They were amazingly gorgeous!!! And for R100 (about $13.00) you could pet one yourself!!! and all the money goes towards the conservation. So without hesitation, I jumped right in! My beautiful cheetah's name was Choebi. He is a young male (about 11 months old) and will be going to American next year to a zoo! How exciting! He purred so loudly when I rubbed his back! His fur was sooooo soft as well! 

Here are a few pictures of my cheesing it up with Choebi and the other beautiful cats:

All in all, my first Saturday was phenomenal! This whole trip keeps getting better! 

Tomorrow (Sunday), I will be taking surfing lessons and then take a champagne sunset cruise! 

Have a great weekend! 

Love and Miss you all! 

Melissa