We started the day by looking for a shop to repair the vehicle A/C. It quit about a month ago but the weather was not hot enough for us to waste a day having it repaired. But that has changed since the temp is creeping up to the mid 30's. So we first ask the Camp owner for a recommendation ( that was my first mistake ) because when they called the Mercedes garage, they had to change my English request to their Afrikan language then back to my English and it quickly became a lost cause. Finally, I took the phone and the lady at the garage said simply " we don't repair A/C". My thoughts were , why the hell did she need to know my name, the make and model of the vehicle if can't fix it anyways. I guess you have to be an Afrikan to understand that. I decided it was better to find a repair shop myself so I grabbed the iPad and found the address to 3 or 4 shops, so off we go to find them. After checking on 3 shops that were closed I ask a guy standing outside one shop and he said everything is closed until 2 Jan.
So , as not to waste the entire day, we headed for the city or town ( we did not know which ) of Paarl. We actually expected a small town but once we arrived there we realized how wrong we where. As we drove around I guessed at least 100,000 population,( as it turns out the pop. is 189,000) so we figured that just maybe the Mercedes dealer could either fix our A/c or direct us to a shop that would repair it. The dealer advised us the this shop only worked on passenger cars but they had another shop nearby that worked on Commerical vehicle so we took it to that shop. This shop apparently was overloaded with work so they sent me to a small shop that only did A/C and auto-Electric repairs and they jumped on it right away. It took them about 1 1/2 to repair and recharge the A/C with gas. The cost was R350 ( about 43.00 cdn ) I can't believe they can make a living at that price.
It was now around 2 PM so we went to the Information bldg to find out what to do in the city. They were very helpful with maps and some " must see " monuments etc. Then she gave us the Wine route map and I'm thinking: those monuments can wait for another day, lets hit the wine tasting. We ( mostly carroll ) decided to go to the winery that also had "Cheese tasting" , which incidentally I had never heard of before. Well, did we hit the " Mother Lode". We pulled into the parking lot and there must have been a 100 cars in the lot. I thought , this must be a huge place and it sure was. First you had to decide if you wanted to taste wine and cheese or just wine or in Carroll's case, just cheese. You gave you a "stick-on " badge which indicated your posion. I took the whole meal deal of 6 wine and 8 cheese tastings at a cost off R25 ( 3.00 cdn ). Carroll got the 8 cheese tastings for R12 ( 1.50 Cdn )I know, this dam drinking is going to break me. The tasting bar, of which there were 6 , where an oval shaped bar, that held about 20 drunks, I mean tasters each with two waitresses in the middle pouring wine about as fast as we could drink it. With 6 bars you can visualize the size of the place. And you could float from the wine bar to the cheese bar which was in a separate room. Incidental Carroll made two passes at the cheese bar while I rode shotgun on the wine bar. I started Kibiting with the waitress as she was approaching my age so we had something in common. After I finished my 6 drinks she gave me a taste of the most expensive wine the make , even though it is not on the tasting list; as she said that was because I was from Canada.I also ask the waitress if it was always this busy and she said from 15 Dec to the 1 st week of Jan it is "bedlam" at their winery.
I made myself a "promise" of no more wine tasting on this trip as i want to leave some for another time. ha ha.
Then we headed to a town called Franchoek which means "French Place" for supper. It has another name and it called " Tourist trap " and it was crawling with tourist. But the meal was great as always.
We arrived home around 6 PM, build a fire and made plans for tomorrow. This dam planning never seems to quit. But somebdy has to do it. Happy New year
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