We’ve managed to meet up with lots of different people on our trip, but so far none of them have been people we’ve known from our lives BTJ (before the journey). Finally, nearly six months in, that has changed. Josh is a friend of mine from my days back at Jack Nadel, and his girlfriend Sarah is shooting a documentary here in Cape Town. Josh and Sarah like to eat and drink, and therefore are close friends that we were very excited to see. Our first dinner was at The Vault, a restaurant in the basement vault of an old bank. It started out innocently enough with a five course tasting menu and wine pairing. The trouble started when the “wine pairing” turned out not to be a sip from the bottle, but the entire bottle. Thus five bottles of wine and several very elaborate shots (see video) later we were pretty toasty. But, as usual, things didn’t end there. We made buddies with the overly verbose chef/owner who then introduced us to a very strange man at the next table over who apparently owned a local winery. Conversation led to more drinks, which led to a round of Cuban cigars upstairs in the smoking lounge, which led to an Apartheid pow wow that ended at 3am.

Luckily for us we had nothing to do the next day. Unluckily for Josh & Sarah they had an entire day of shooting planned starting with a 9am boat trip on very rough seas out to Robben Island. Sucks for them. Last night we went to Moyo, a rather touristy “authentic African” restaurant in Spier winery that boasts local dance and music. Mostly I felt like I was on a cheap Caribbean cruise, complete with buffet and face painting, but it was fun enough.