Penguins in Africa!! (and some Capes)

First, yes, they do have penguins in Africa in case you were unaware. One of the benefits of living so far south in the Southern Hemisphere. That and the toilets flush the other way (but come to think of it, I've never thought to check when I flush, I just assume it's the wrong way...)


And secondly, no, not capes as in this. We're talking the capes of the geographical variety. Specifically, this one.


Okay, enough fancy hyperlink-studded preludes. Basically, this post is just to catch up on everything that I've done so far in South Africa starting with our trip a week ago to the Cape Peninsula. We drove into Cape Town and had beautiful views of the city bowl (downtown) as well as Table Mountain (the most famous natural landmark of the city).



After that we continued south towards the Cape, stopping through some very upscale suburbs of Cape Town that many relate to the "South African" Riviera both in their styllishness and snobiness. Our lunch stop in Hout Bay was truly stunning, however, and to give a sense of it I've included this video clip.






So yeah, if any of you had been wondering what I had meant by the incredible natural beauty of South Africa, it is this. Taking in a scenic view of the ocean with the wind on your face and the sun on your back. Can life get better? I submit that Brian Regan knows the answer.


Also, in case you were wondering, those people in the clip are all my program mates from CIEE Stellenbosch (there are 10 of us in total) with Joe, our South African social liason and "orientation advisor" sitting on the ground to the far right. Really that title is just a fancy way of saying he gets paid to take us around and show us a good time. Pretty sweet job if you ask me.


Moving on, we then proceeded to go see the penguins at Boulder Beach. For having never seen penguins "in the wild" it was quite a thrilling experience. Most of the thrill, however, didn't come from the penguins, which were simply fun to look at, but the grains of sand that continued to pelt us in the face at 100 miles per hour. Not fun. But still worth it for getting to see penguins in South freakin Africa!

After we got over the awesome penguins, we finally headed to the most southern point of the Cape Peninsula, and the most south-western point of the African Continitent, Cape Point. Along the way, we also stopped at the historically famous Cape of Good Hope. And to just drop in a history lesson for all of you, the Portuguese had orginially named the cape the Cape of Storms but since trying to enlist sailors to make the voyage to India by telling them they'd be sailing around the Cape of Storms was bad marketing, they decided to change the name. Pretty smart if you ask me. Right up there with Leif Eriksson naming Greenland "Greenland" and not "Forsaken Wasteland of Ice" like it probably should be called.

Anways, back to the Cape, it turned out that we had to take a nice little drive through the Table Mountain National Park to get to Cape Point. It was very interesting noting the completely windswept and treeless plains. In fact, it gets so windy there that no plants bigger than small shrubs and bushes can grow there. The vegetation is unique to the Western Cape region of South Africa, growing no where else in the world, and is named fynbos (fine bush).

If you can't already tell, I'm somewhat of a nerd for talking about the vegetation of South Africa. I would talk about the baboons, ostriches, and springbok that also live in the park, except we didn't see very many (other than a few baboons beside the road).

After the nice car ride, we finally made it to Cape Point where we had some of the most amazing views of the rugged coastline meeting the freezing Atlantic Ocean. Since words can't really describe it, and I've already written enough for a dissertation, I'll put in some more visuals.

Not only were the views incredible, but the winds created swirling clouds that flew just over our heads at intense speeds. If you weren't careful, the wind could swipe your sunglasses (or "sunnies" as Joe calls them) right off your face. I've also never been in a place were we could actually watch as clouds were created by the wind currents hitting the sheer cliff and lifting themselves over the edge high above the water. I'm no meteorologist, but it was pretty cool to see.

All in all, it was a great trip and really gave us a chance to see more of the beautiful landscape and seascape of South Africa. The geography nerd in me was also greatly satisfied with the trip to the Cape.

So yeah, I have now accomplished my goal of getting out all these pictures and videos for the world to see and can start making progress on getting over the backlog of things I need to post. Hope you enjoyed all the imagery! See you later!