Thursday, April 8, 2010

penguins!

We finally made it to Cape Town! We spent 15 hours in the car to get from Harare to Pretoria in one day - the border crossing was amazingly easy - it only took us 30 minutes, which is a record for us! Despite no AC or functioning radio, it wasn't a bad day. And we were greeted by our lovely friends Tommy and Lesley, who had food, wine and even chocolate covered pecans on the bedside table! We met up with our friend Heather the next day and got our start on the next leg of the journey after noon. We made it a whooping 120 kms outside of Joburg before the truck broke down. We're driving a 1990's Land Rover these days and despite having just recently been purchased, the proper maintenance wasn't done and the gear box died on us. We broke down in the perfect spot though - we managed to find a tow company after a few different calls and were brought back to the small town of Parys (said like the last name Perez but with an 'a' - sortof, it's an Afrikaans word and I have trouble pronouncing most of them). Lucky they happened to have a guy there that works on Land Rovers and there was a guy in a town far away that refurbishes gear boxes. So after only a 2 day delay, we were back on the road by Thursday and by Friday lunch time, we were driving along the coast where we stopped at our favorite restaurant Olympia Cafe and picked up some delicious croissants and shortbread cookies and had a little picnic over looking the bay.

Jason's busy working - that's the reason for the trip to SA. He's facilitating a workshop here and then going to a conference in Durban. Since I'm jobless, I get to tag along and have a different backdrop to do whatever it is I do to pass the time. Wednesday I took a nice walk down to Boulders Beach, which is where all the penguins hang out - you have to pay to actually go into the park but if you just walk down the road, there is a little section that has penguins chilling and you don't have to pay.


This little guy waddled over to the gate and I think was just waiting for someone to open it so he could make his escape. They are so freaking cute!


The penguins don't just hang out on the beach, they walk up towards the road and nest in the bushes that are all around. There was a couple that had probably been camped out all day, videoing baby penguins in this one bush - I dropped down and hugged the road so I could also get a peak. They were so furry and squeaky.

Please note the lovely backdrop! Jason's bosses live just to the left of this shot, in a hillside thatched roof house and it's gorgeous.

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