Sunday - The Cape Peninsula

Wow, what a day, some of the most beautiful scenery I have every seen. Vistas of mountains and water and a slight haze in the distance, baboons that walk right toward us and wander into the road. Penguins that hide under the trees or bask in the sunshine.
But I get ahead of myself…

Kevin, our Scottish-turned South Africa guide picked us up a bit early for me – 8:30.
I confess, I had already pigged out on a traditional English breakfast buffet, for the record the croissants were really good! Off we go in his Land Rover. The guys give me a break and give me the front seat all day! First stop, Table Mountain park, with views of the city of Capetown at our feet and the Atlantic stretching into the horizon. It’s a cloudless, gorgeous day and Kevin points out the Jewish neighborhood (it’s nice Mom) and the old city and the harbour and the reclaimed land…there is a lot of it, kind of like Redwood City.

After picture taking, we head further south, destination, the Cape of Good Hope, via the scenic Oceanside roads. There is a rock slide blocking Chapman’s Peak but we go as far as we can, until the police scowl at us and we turn back. I hear the legend of the leopard on the rock, that the fisherman finally recreated in stone to assure good fishing every day, and the reluctant scout, Mr Chapman. We stop for coffee and a small craft fair and I check out the housing prices in the neighborhood, which is lovely. Pricey…but not by California standards. I toy briefly with the idea of moving, but first I will need to know how to read a menu completely AND understand what people are saying to me…we are a people divided by a common language.

Further south we go past the most secured buildings in Capetown, the high security prison and the American Embassy. Interestingly they are almost next to each other and smack in the middle of a very fancy neighborhood. Go figure. We drive through several beach towns, the stop at an Ostrich farm. Kevin shows us how to feed the ostrich hunks of grass without losing a finger, but I still manage to get it to bite me. No damage done, but we all had a laugh. I did not drown my sorrows over the bite by buying a very expensive ostrich bag, but believe me, I thought about it. Thank God it wasn’t shoes or there would have been no stopping me.

Finally we enter the national park, and Kevin teaches us about fynbos, the flora in the cape area (over 6500 varieties) that make it so special. I confess, its hard to look at the flowers when the beaches, cliffs and vistas are so amazing. But I see pincushion flowers, a member of the protea family, and learn about things I will need a book to remember and log properly, please forgive me. They have a wonderful white fuzzy flower that they call Everlasting when it is added to bouquets – seems the stuff never dies. They call it Cape Snow the rest of the time, because it large batches amongst the greenery, it looks like snow.

We see a wonderful huge tortoise along the roadside then go to find the baboons, who walk right to us, a few adults and a whole passle of babies that are too cute for words.
Hopefully my pictures will do them justice. They are clearly protected here and they know it. They walk in the roads too, right in front of cars, they are everywhere.
We head to Cape Point, to the lighthouse, and to the official Cape of Good Hope for a photo op with a dozen tour buses. Then we eat (we do that a lot) and I get even with that ostrich by having his family for lunch. Yum.

We start up the East coast, along False Bay, for the return trip, through charming villages that run along the water, Simonstown, - home of the SA Navy, Fishhoek – home of the most recent shark killing, Kevin is full of interesting tidbits. And we stop at Boulders Beach, a habitat for the African Penguin (aka Jackass Penguin) a tiny little thing that is sadly molting and not looking its best. But we enjoy finding them hiding under bushes and sunning on the rocks. And finally back to our hotel, where I am dead on my feet, although technically I have done almost nothing all day but ride around. Isn’t life wonderful??