Selwyn

My friend Sam Van Voorhis has been around the world twice.  So when Sam gives me travel advice, I take it.  I had arranged a private tour for Carol and I of the Winelands for our last day in South Africa with Sam’s favorite travel guide, Selwyn Davidowitz.

We felt modestly bad because we were abandoning the group tour of the Winelands, but Selwyn was a fascinating fellow who gave us a real feel for life in South Africa –culturally, politically, and, very importantly, food and wine.

He picked us up at the hotel at 9am.  And we went nowhere.  Fast.  He spent a good 15-20 minutes filling us in on what we would be doing that day, South Africa in general, and the greater Cape Town area.  Selwyn is an excellent guide – he loves to talk, and everything he talked about was pretty fascinating.  I also realized we probably did not want to go to the wineries too early in the day, or Carol and I would be sleeping by 2 pm.

Once we did get going, Selwyn kept up his interesting stories.  Carol and I followed along, whilst hoping we did not die.  Selwyn’s driving style can best be called “texting teenager distracted” at an incredible rate of speed (for a snail).  Cars were zipping past like we were telephone poles standing still.  I flashed back to Stefano, our driver from Rome to Pompeii.  Selwyn may have been a slow driver, but at least his stories were very interesting.  And that made it all okay.

Selwyn’s led a very interesting life.  He was an engineer who ran a clothing business, then became a card counter gambler who was one of three who ran the MIT gambling ring chronicled in the movie “21" – which was based on the Ben Mezrich book, “Bringing Down the House.” (If you haven’t read every one of Mezrich’s books, you need to).  Now he guides because he likes to show people the best of the Cape Town area.  He won the Guide of the Year (an international award) a number of years ago, and has quite the zest for life.

This is from his website, (yes, he IS as energetic as his website implies) and he talked about all of these at one point or another during the day.  Under hobbies and interests, he lists:

∙ BEING PART OF BUILDING THE WONDERFUL, NEW SOUTH AFRICA
∙ Sports mad – you name it I’ve played it, although these days I mainly watch it
∙ Avid cook - Love concocting wonderful meals
∙ Keen wine collector and wine-taster
∙ Opera, ballet, theatre and movie lover (Glen’s note: I don’t believe we talked about that)
∙ Enjoy anything to do with computers with special interest being the internet
∙ Keen long distance swimmer who has swum the Cape Town - Robben Island crossing twice (Glen’s             note: he’s getting ready to do it again)
∙ Have a special affinity for Cape Town, its people and its history
∙ Helping the people of the township of Kayamandi (See township tours)
∙ Love traveling and have traveled extensively. I have had a foot on every continent at some time or other

Anyhow, he’s a true Renaissance Man – not a typical tour guide at all.  He did ignore my humor when he asked, “do you know why I like guiding?”  I drily noted, “because you like to talk?” but he ran right past that.

All kidding aside, Selwyn may have been quirky, but he was great.  He was very focused on getting us a more in-depth feel for South Africa than you can get ten days there.  He was great answering our questions – which were many and varied.

(I get it, we went to Cape Town and on safari.  That’s like some foreign tourist saying “we’ve been to San Francisco and Yellowstone, so we understand America.”  We don’t understand SA – but we do have a better feel for it, in large part thanks to the day we spent with Selwyn).

A while after doing 40 in a 60, we pulled into our first stop.