Cape Point and the Penguins

Tuesday morning we took a drive down south to cape point, which is the southern most part of western Africa. We stopped at a few towns along the way to get pictures of the bays and the ocean.

There is a beach about a half-an-hour from cape point called "The Boulders." It is a breeding ground and home to African Penguins. We parked, payed the small fee,and walked down to the beach. The penguins were so cute! There were lots and lots of penguins. They stand about shin high, about the height of a large sea gull. I always pictured penguins in ice, just like the movies, so it was strange to see them in bushes, under trees, and sitting on their eggs in burrows in the sand; almost too tropical, but cute nonetheless. We saw fat baby penguins, some of them moulting into their juvenile blue feathers. It takes two years for the penguins to mature to adulthood and take on their black color. The African penguins mate for life starting at about 4 years old. Some of the penguins waddled right up to us for a picture. We laughed and laughed at their awkward gate, with their wings out, sort of unsteady-like. We sadly thought of Porter and laughed at how he'll be walking like that very soon.

From there we drove to cape point, the sun decided to grace us with its presence that morning. As we wound our way through the national park toward the coast, the water took on a beautiful blue. Did I mention the baboons? Everywhere we saw signs warning that baboons are wild and dangerous, which they are, I guess, all we saw were troops walking alongside the road, some with cute little babies on their backs. At Cape Point it was strange looking at the horizon, knowing our eyes were pointed toward Antarctica. The beaches are lined with 50-100 ft cliffs, straight up. So we didn't go down to the beach. We opted for a hike to the old lighthouse instead. This turned out to be the wisest decision, for we had a spectacular view. Looking back at the narrow land, we were surrounded by ocean on both sides. Quite amazing, as if you feel you've made it to the end of the Earth. (Except for the mountains we could see in the distance to the south-east of us on the main land).

Evan wanted to get back to the conference by two, so we left just in time, just as a Japanese tour bus pulled up... Of course it is raining in Cape Town. I went to a local market, then took a nap while Evan attended presentations.

We ate dinner at an authentic African restaurant where we tried a lot of local cuisine. They also sang and danced for us. Then back to the hotel we went to see if the fourth night would be the charm to sleep through the night. It worked! We both slept.

Aparently there is a muslim mosque across the street, which through a loud speaker, day and night, plays-did I mention it was a loud speaker?-prayers, or songs, or whatever, in a chanting way. It wakes us up at 6 am every morning. Very annoying, but good for them.