Tuesday, 9 December 1986: Enjoying Wine Country and Fascinating Women

 Denver, Colorado, April 7, 2023.

Another day, another day trip – this time northeast from Constantia and Cape Town, past Bellville and other non-descript suburban areas, then on to some pretty farm country around Muldersvlei with rugged mountains in the background.  My destination was the wine country around Wellington and Paarl at the foot of the Groenberg Mountains.  These towns feature excellent examples of Cape Dutch architecture with its origins in the settlement by Dutch and French Huguenot farmers in the area starting in the late 17^th Century.  Of course, as in the Americas, these Europeans were not the first human inhabitants of the area.  They initially traded with, but eventually displaced, the Khoikhoi (Hottentot) people who were nomadic pastoralists.   

 

My December 9 day-trip took me to South Africa’s most notable wine-producing region followed by dinner in Stellenbosch.

A vineyard near Wellington which produces first-rate wines.

 

At a local vineyard, I availed myself of the opportunity to sample some of South Africa’s famous but cheap wines.  I was not disappointed in their quality and bought a couple bottles of the tasty stuff to keep me well fortified during my trip. 

Perhaps more interesting and certainly more unusual than the vineyards was the Afrikaans Language Monument outside of Paarl.  This assemblage of stone and concrete obelisks and mounds on a hilltop overlooking the city commemorates the recognition of Afrikaans as a separate language from Dutch, the mother tongue from which it has evolved during some 400 years.  It was officially recognized as the first language of South Africa in 1925.  Afrikaans has incorporated many words from the local African languages. The monument symbolizes the pride of Afrikaners in their language. 

 

View east overlooking Paarl, a small city in a picturesque Western Cape valley.

The Afrikaans Language Monument near Paarl commemorates the only European tongue to have developed outside of Europe.  It is the first language of a majority of white and coloured (mixed-race) South Africans.

 

From Paarl, I drove 30 km south to Stellenbosch to enjoy some pleasant female companionship.  My friend Helize van Vuuren, the University of Natal Afrikaans professor that I had met on a mountain club trip back in April, was in the Cape Town area for the holidays.  I got together with her for dinner which also included Marlise and Uti who lived in Stellenbosch.  We were joined by Walter, who like Uti was a German South African.  I was very attracted to Marlise who was very sensuous and pretty with dark hair, big eyes, and kissable lips.  To me, she looked French.  I learned that she had published a novel and several books of poems.  She worked as a librarian at the University of Stellenbosch, considered by many to be the premier Afrikaans-medium university in the country.  My notes indicate that I called her a couple days later but I have no recollection as to whether we ever got together.  In a letter sent to Jim Bachman later that month, I noted that, “The women I met in Stellenbosch turned out to be very intelligent, attractive, and nice but not my type.” Oh well, so it often seems to have gone for me in the African romance department.