baboons are dangerous and attracted by food...

Wow, I’m tired… it’s 8:20pm, and I’m ready to go to bed….  We went down along the Cape peninsula today, on the West side (the Atlantic Ocean side) and then back up on the east side (the India Ocean side), stopping all the way to see a lot of beautiful rugged landscapes, lot of wildlife and wild flowers and of course, like everywhere else on earth, lots of German tourists.

So here is the quick debrief:

We stopped first at Hout bay, to see sea lions:  we had to get on a boat – where the waves where much higher than I had bargained for – like MUCH higher – roller coaster high, hang to your neighbor on the boat high, focus all of your attention on not loosing your breakfast high….

But all these things I did – successfully-, and it was in fact lovely and there where a lot of sea lions to see – and a lot of waves–.....

We then went to the Cape of Good Hope , 

where I learned that several facts that I thought I knew are in fact incorrect:

1)     Vasco De gamma neither discovered nor named the Cape of Good Hope: Bartholomew Diaz did about 10years before Vasco did, but was not as well funded, and thus did not circumnavigate it, nor brag about it, so old Vasco got the credit (isn’t that always the case??).  Bartholomew wanted to call it Cape Storm – because it is so stormy – but the king of Portugal thought that would discourage further exploration, so asked for a better name – and Bartholomew choose Cape of Good Hope -  proving that PR was very important even then!

2)      I thought (doesn’t everyone??) that the Cape of Good hope was the southern most point of Africa – it’s not.  That title goes to Cape Agulhas – a cape I had never heard of – which does not seam fair.

3)     Baboons are not cute:   

 well, I still think they are, but the people here think they are a nuisance, and dangerous -  In fact, anywhere in South Africa other than the National Park we were in, you can shoot them and even get a reward for shooting them, because there are so many of them, and they are so aggressive and destructive.  Here is one at the restaurant:  he was eyeing all the tables, trying to steal food……  still, I thought they were cute.....

In any case – the Cape of Good Hope is still believed to be the point at which the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet- based mostly on the temperature difference in the water on the east and west side of the cape.  Also, it is very beautiful .....

We also saw a lot of ostriches there – I guess they made Joe hungry, because that’s what he had for dinner……

Then, we went back up along the Indian Ocean and stopped by to visit some penguins, which made me very happy!!!  In fact, penguin love seems to be one of these universal human trait on which we may be able to build understanding between nations:  On the trail up to the top of the Cape of Good Hope was a family whose language I did not understand:  it was clearly Arabic based, and the family was obviously Muslim.  The teenage daughter was talking with some excitement – apparently about the next stop on their trip – the only words I understood where “yeh! Penguins!!!”  Which was exactly how I felt – now, if we can all agree about that, can’t we just also agree about peace on earth?  This somehow gives me hope….   

Then, we stopped by this random fabulous beach, 

and then the botanical garden, where this was my favorite flower (It’s called a pincushion flowers, they are blooming right now and are beautiful).

Joe took 420 pictures…..  So it was tough to choose just these few......

Tomorrow – the wine country!