South Africa is great so far. We have been in Cape Town for 2 nights, and already we have seen ostriches (not sure if they are feral or wild), babboons, some sort of antelope like creature, penguins, whales, seals, lots of birds, and lots of rabbits.
On Sunday we drove down to the Cape of Good Hope, which has the fuzzy geographic distinction of being the most southwesterly point of the African continent. We hiked around the stunning scenery and huge crashing waves for a couple of hours. There is a world atmospheric station of some sort there (one of the global network that measures carbon dioxide concentrations), and it was interesting to imagine that there was nothing but ocean in between us and Antarctica.
Tuesday we went to the newly reinvigorated Cape Town waterfront where we embarked on a ferry ride to and a tour of Robben Island (now a world heritage site), where Nelson Mandela and many other political prisoners were held for many, many years. Part of our tour was led by a man who was a prisoner on the island for seven years. His crime (for which there was no trial) was "terrorism", and apparently he was involved in some of the education riots which Stefan thinks he has read about or seen a movie about. It was a very interesting experience which included Nelson Mandela's jail cell on an island covered in introduced rabbits (tens of thousands?) and native penguins. The ferry ride included the largest ocean swells that Stefan or Bernie have ever experienced, estimated by us to be at least 20 feet (if there are any geographers reading this perhaps they could get ambitious and get a buoy report for Monday, September 10th around 13:00 UTC). We can understand how our friend Seth got into surfing in his formative years spent in Cape Town.
Tomorrow we leave Cape Town for the drive north to Namibia. We will take about 4 days to drive the 1900km to Tsumeb.
5 comments:
That looks just like Mali!
Does this mean no update for 4 days? Are the two of you renting a car and driving yourselves?
More info please.
me thinks there wasn't that much swell in the water by south african standards, but i'd have to see more pictures.... for what it's worth, the ferry from Haines to Kodiak has been my worst boat/swell experience.
What's the food like? Do they eat ostrich there?
Hi Guys,
Looks like your having an amazing time. we are really enjoying your blog and are looking forward to your next posting.
Pearse & Mairaed
Hi Pearse, Mairaed, my sister Anne(Fatoumata) and the mysterious G,
We had a great time in Tsumeb Namibia with Stefan's german cousins there. His great aunt Dorle is almost 88 but is a lot of fun. Hope to put up some pictures soon, wish you all were here :-)
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