Cape Town

I have been mostly stuck at home, either car-less or working since I got back from Cape Town in the middle of May, so please forgive me for the lack of posts and pretend that this got published 2 weeks ago!

I spent 10 days with Anna, road-tripping down to Cape Town where she is doing her masters and then being a tourist down there. It was AMAZING! The drive was absolutely gorgeous (photo below is of sunset on the first day). It takes 2 days to get there and we stopped for the night at a back packers. I did drive a little on the first day, but the Mini is such a nice car that I was too worried about breaking it somehow, so Anna did most of the driving. I took up the essential co-pilot duties of DJ and Snack Guru.

Since Anna has a slightly psycho landlady, I stayed with one of her friends instead, sleeping on the most comfortable couch I have ever had the pleasure to meet and we went out to see the sights on the days Anna didn't have class. On the days she did have class we mostly went to the malls, which are amazing. Major attraction of Cape Town - malls that don't close at 6pm. Joburg needs to get its act together!Above are Anna and I at the Cape of Good Hope - the most South-Westerly point of South Africa. They have a really cool nature reserve that encompasses most of the Cape Point and we drove/hiked around a good bit of it. We even went swimming in the Atlantic ocean (bear in mind that we are very far south and it is nearly winter here and you will understand how much of a feat this was)! One of the coolest things we saw was a group (herd, flock??) of ostrich standing on the beach by the road. I was trying to take a picture and one of them decided that my camera looked tasty, resulting in the following picture, taken just before Anna rolled up my window for protection. The heart-attack was worth it though!
Possibly my favorite part of the holiday was the penguin reserve that we went to at the end. You could walk on a boardwalk all around the natural penguin colony by the ocean. When we went a lot of the penguins had babys, and, surprisingly, nested in little holes in the ground with their eggs/chicks. There was one bit (below) where you could walk down to a section of rock, and one adventurous penguin had tunnelled through the fence to come and check out the tourists. He was also very interested in my camera and I got really close! Apparently the Canon makes good animal bait.