Saturday, November 26, 2011

Cape Town Adventure - Day 3

What an adventure we had today! It all started with renting a car, and making our way to Cape Point, the very southern tip of South Africa. This would be tricky enough to do in a foreign city, but throw in the fact that they drive on the wrong side of the road, and this becomes really interesting.

Along the way, we stopped for a most excellent breakfast in Simon's Town (how could we not stop?), where I got a nice dose of museum viewing in.

From Simon's town, we made our way to Boulder's beach, where we saw the colony of Penguins which set up shop there in the 80's. The life of a penguin looks pretty chill - lots of sitting around getting admired by tourists with an occasional dip in the water for some fishing.

After the penguins, we made our way to Cape Point. As you would imagine, the views from this Southern most point were spectacular. After schlepping up the hill to the old lighthouse, we made our way to the actual Cape of Good Hope.

In college, I infamously flubbed an essay when I blanked on who or what a Vasco Da Gama was. I wrote extensively about how this related to the Samurai of Japan (yeah, I was reaching in a major way that day). Of course, Da Gama was an explorer - but not just any explorer, he was one of the first to sail around the Cape of Good hope and on to India. It was fitting, therefore, that I should finally get to glimpse the history I so massively butchered in college.

A number of people, and signs, warned of baboons in the park. They have a reputation for snatching the food right from your hand. As we stepped out of the car, and got ourselves ready, we heard rustling in the bushes nearby. I calmly told myself it was just the shrubs making my imagination act up. As we turned and walked through the parking lot, a couple of toursists were in front of us carrying their picnic lunch. Sure enough, out of the bushes appeared a baboon, who deftly snatched the bag of food and carefully opened it up to eat as his own lunch. So classic.

This was truly an awesome day with awesome sights.

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