Cape Town

At the end of our South Africa trip, we went to Cape Town, a lovely city near the southwestern corner of the country. It's similar to San Francisco in many ways: hilly, full of Victorian buildings, located on a pretty bay, known for its fine cuisine, cosmopolitan, and diverse. It's hard to say what we enjoyed most, but I must say that exploring the city on foot, walking on sidewalks without danger of cars pushing you into a giant drainage ditch, was a great pleasure.

Reminders of Ghana were here and there: the yellow building pictured above is a museum that featured an exhibit about Ashanti gold from Ghana. We also saw beads from Ghana in a Cape Town bead store. They were priced at over 10 times what they cost in Ghana.



We stayed near the Victoria and Alfred waterfront, named for Queen Victoria of England and her second son. There are lots of shops and restaurants here, as well as a marina. This photo shows Table Mountain in the background. It's a wonderful city to visit if you ever get the chance.

Completely off-topic, some of you might be wondering what happened in the Ghana-Nigeria match in the Cup of African Nations Sunday night. Ghana's Black Stars defeated Nigeria's Super Eagles, 2-1! Next they will face Cameroon in a semi-final match on Thursday (tomorrow).

Table Mountain

One of the main attractions in South Africa is Tafelberg, also known as Table Mountain. It looms above Cape Town, the roofs of which are visible in this photo.



There is a cable car that goes from the base to the top, 3,565 feet high. The cable car has wraparound windows, and the interior rotates so that you can see a 360-degree view without moving around. The view on a clear day like this one is spectacular.



Up at the top, there are some trails. We traipsed around most of them. At one point we passed a schoolgirl, who said to us, "Please take my picture." So we did.



In the photo below you can see Cape Town down in the distance. The island you see is Robben Island, formerly a political prison where Nelson Mandela spent years and years. (More about Robben Island coming in a future post.)

Cape Agulhas

Sorry for the lack of posts this past week. Both of us were extremely busy at work due to Congressional delegations visiting from the US. There were a lot of schedule changes that kept everyone hopping.



So, back to our South Africa trip.

Here we are at Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point in Africa. This is the point where the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean meet.



This place is gorgeous and fairly deserted. There are lots of rocks to climb on and tidal pools to peer into. This one has some snails in it. We also saw starfish and sea urchins.

The Agulhas lighthouse is a short drive away. Inside is a museum, and you can climb to the top, which we did. There's also a little cafe inside, where we enjoyed scones for breakfast.

Assorted South African Wildlife

Elephants like to stand close together, touching, while at water holes. We saw this family and two other elephant families all at the same waterhole at the same time, about 50 elephants in all.



Hippos hide submerged in the water much of the time, but once in a while they get up and show themselves.



Another name for a wildebeest is gnu. What's gnu with you?



This giraffe is relaxing in the tall grass while some birds, oxpeckers, hang out on his back.



Ostrich babies follow their ostrich mom.



There are many types of antelope in South Africa. This one is a nyala. Check out those swirly horns.



Is this monkey a proctologist?



This lion didn't want to turn around and show his face, but just to prove we saw him, we got a photo of his back.



We saw more impala than any other animal. They were everywhere.



Zebra buddies out for a walk.



Warthogs are so bizarre looking that it's hard to believe they're real.

Beach stuff in South Africa

South Africa has a lot of coastline, and we were fortunate enough to visit some of it. Here are some things we saw at the beaches.



What is it? A jellyfish or portion of one? Dan poked at it with a stick, but we couldn't tell.



On this beach at Cape Vidal on the east coast, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Walking along the sand was lovely, even though it was a bit overcast and windy. We noticed some odd designs in the sand and took a closer look.



They turned out to be snail trails. Those snails sure take circuitous routes.

Special Treatment at the Engine Museum

Happy new year, blog readers! Hard to believe it's already 2008. Especially since we're still blogging about our October 2007 South Africa trip.



On our way to Graaff-Reinet (historic town where we saw the Bentleys), we took a wrong turn and ended up in Stutterheim. We saw a sign that said "Engine Museum," and Dan's eyes lit up. Decided to check it out.



Only one person was there, an older gentleman who was thrilled to greet us. He proceeded to show us each engine, describing its purpose and where it came from. He even started the engines up to show us how they worked.



In one case, the start-up mechanism was a wheel with a handle that one had to turn vigorously. When the engine caught and started, it would jerk suddenly. The museum guy let me start it up, and the sudden jerk took me by surprise and made me jump back(see the picture below).



The next day, after leaving Graaff-Reinet, we visited the nearby Valley of Desolation. You can sort of see where it got its name, although it's a beautiful sort of desolation.

Antique cars in South Africa

In Ghana, one rarely sees a car older than 15 years old. Ghanaians think old cars are hilarious and can't understand why anyone would want to have one. In terms of antique cars, Ghana is a wasteland.

South Africa, however, is a place where classic automobiles are appreciated. One day, while visiting the historic town of Graaff-Reinet, we noticed a gathering of people and went to see what it was about. Why, it was the Bentley Club, of course, taking their 1920s-era Bentleys out for a spin.



All of the Bentleys had badges reading "Tour of South Africa 2007" on their grills or front bumpers. Each badge noted the owner's country of origin. There were cars there from the US, Australia, and England as well as South Africa. So presumably these drivers had to ship their giant vehicles over here for this motor tour. Wonder how much that costs.



In the town of Uitenhage, we visited the Volkswagen Museum. It's attached to a VW plant where they have been manufacturing VWs for decades. This plant started out making Studebakers.



The museum is pretty impressive and has some flashy displays as well as mint-condition old VWs, such as the shiny Beetle above.



We saw this old Benz at a refurbished old-timey service station in Thomas River.

Birds of South Africa

South Africa is great for wildlife viewing. Many have heard about the opportunities to see the "big five" (lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard and rhino), but the country is also rich with bird life. Here's a few we saw on our trip.

We saw this hoopoe while eating lunch in Kruger National Park. He was not skittish and didn't mind having his photo taken.



We tried to get closer to this white-fronted bee eater but he flew away, so this is a blow up of the photo taken before his escape. (Yes, we used a zoom lens, but we don't have one of those 6-foot-long mega lenses that allow you to see a gnat on the bird's beak.)



This cape weaver and his friend are perched in a tree outside of our chalet (a house, really) at Hlalanathi in the Northern Drakensberg range. The chalet looked out on "the amphitheater," a section of the mountains often pictured on postcards. A photo of the amphitheater is in our first post on this blog.



We spotted this spoonbill on the other side of the country at West Coast National Park.



There's a penguin colony at Boulder's Beach, near the Cape of Good Hope. You can get close to the penguins, but there were far fewer here than in the reserve we visited in Argentina, Reserva Provincial Punta Tombo.



Aerial view of a penguin.



There are lots of ostriches in South Africa. Some live wild in the parks and reserves, like those pictured here. Others are raised on farms for their meat.



These two ostriches appear to be in love. Or something.

Blyde River Canyon

There's a beautiful place in South Africa called Blyde River Canyon. Supposedly it's the 3rd largest canyon in the world. (Not sure what numbers one and two are; maybe Copper Canyon and the Grand Canyon?) There are well-maintained trails there, and we had a great time hiking on the "guinea fowl trail" and "leopard trail." Didn't see any people, but we did get an earful of a baboon fight!



The photo above is of Bourke's Luck Potholes, a rock formation with round holes made from churning water.



No lack of baboons in this area. This one thinks he's funny.

Welcome to the new blog

Hello. We're starting up a new blog, "Peripatetic." This is our first post.



We want to catch you up on our goings-on and also post fairly frequently, so we are going to start out by telling you about some events that took place a while back.




In October, we went on vacation to South Africa. Some friends had recommended it, and we had read some good things about it, but we had no idea how fantastic it was till we experienced it.



What was so great about it, you ask? Just to begin, and this list is nowhere near comprehensive, here's a few fabulous aspects of S. Africa:

-great infrastructure (smooth paved roads, excellent signage, dependable electricity)
-easy for tourism (plenty of gas stations, stores, hotels, restaurants, maps, guidebooks)
-beautiful scenery (beaches, mountains, canyons, savannah, rolling hills, tons and tons of wildlife)
-polite and friendly people
-pleasant weather (low humidity, 70 degrees or so)
-fresh air (no smell of burning garbage)
-impressive network of national parks
-clean public restrooms that contained toilet paper, soap and running water, even in gas stations!

Before now we have not been so excited by all those creature comforts, but living in Ghana for 14 months makes you appreciate such things.

More about the South Africa trip in the next post -- stay tuned!