Days 88 thru 90

(Dan’s comments are italicized)

Find the answer below.

Before sharing nice photos, I want to come clean. The beauty here coexists alongside poverty and homelessness. I’ve shared some beautiful sunsets taken from our balcony; these photos are also taken from our balcony…

The weather here in Cape Town is very changeable (in fairness, it is winter) so we have beautiful days interspersed with dull, grey, damp days. We took advantage of a couple of beautiful days recently to go to the Cape of Good Hope and to take a long walk along the promenade. On the way to the Cape we stopped at Boulders Beach where there is a colony of penguins!!! Who knew there were penguins in Africa? These little creatures are so entertaining and are very human-like in their expressions and behaviors.

It’s mating season so the mating pairs were busy…building nests and laying eggs. Most penguins mate for life and the males work very hard to build the perfect nest, fetching twigs…

We also got to see them waddle out into the waves and surf around.

And all this viewing from an extremely crowded platform!!

We were really fortunate to see a penguin just after she had laid an egg…

And, having just read that penguins lay two eggs at a time we waited and saw her lay the second!

We could have spent the whole day watching these fascinating little creatures but other places were calling so we went to Cape Point lighthouse.

Actually, ‘we’ didn’t climb to the lighthouse (the funicular is closed for the winter); Dan did and I had an ice-cream and took photos while waiting for him.

The hike was all up, and I knew I was going to be feeling it later. But the view was worth it.

On our way to the Cape of Good Hope we saw…

The Cape of Good Hope is the most south-western part of Africa.

While Rhia was taking these pictures, I was hiking up to the rocky view point. I happened to see her below and took a photo.

It was stunning…though I spotted thousands of some-creatures that creeped me out a bit!

Moving away from the ocean, we found an amazing stone-carving place…

…and we saw baboons (and now you know what penguins, ostriches, and baboons have in common!)

We accidentally took the wrong road back and drove along a toll road along Chapman Peak and oh-my-goodness! It wasn’t so much that it was the wrong road, Google maps had an option that looked like it was a shorter distance, and I selected it not knowing any better. As the driver, though, I only caught glimpses because the road was narrow and wound about.

It truly is exceptionally beautiful here and we do enjoy both our busy days and our laid-back ones where we just amble around.

We find things to do even on grey, misty days. On this particular grey day, we went to Llandudno (yes, there’s a Llandudno in Cape Town as well as in N. Wales) as the weather perfectly reminded me of home 😁

And we went to the bird sanctuary. Dan’s much more into birds than I am, but I do love a good photo opportunity 😂… A lot of the birds at this sanctuary were not only rescued, but pets. A few of the cockatoos could speak and seemed eager for interaction by climbing the front of the cage and saying hello.

I particularly enjoyed watching the Rhea (great name, by the way!)…

I could go on…but won’t. I’ll leave you with my best close-up photo of a cassowary…

And a photo of me; my hair hasn’t been cut for 3 months and I’m desperate…

Unfortunately, the wind and the rain really started to move in, so we left the bird park. We stopped at a nice Indian restaurant we saw on our surprise route from the Cape of Good Hope the day before called ‘The Raj’ located in Camps Bay. The food was so delicious that I had to call out the name! I wouldn’t doubt we go there again before we leave.