March of the Penguins

           Today I went to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point. We travelled along the coast, driving along a road carved into the side of mostly sheer cliff, hovering above the ocean. In a really large tour bus. On a twisty road with some very tight turns. Oh and there was a bike race so we had to avoid cyclists. That’s right, it was so awesome but really scary. I also didn’t know what to look at because there were gorgeous mountains to my left and was gorgeous ocean to my right. Once we got closer to the Cape of Good Hope, we entered a floral reserve. There we saw some ostriches (including babies!), baboons, and these tiny little bright green birds.

The Cape of Good Hope is not the southernmost point, but where you start travelling more east than south around Africa. That is because Cape Point is one of the two most southerly points (the currents fluctuate between this point and another one depending on the winds). The Cape of Good Hope was quite windy and cold, but apparently that was “not windy” so I guess it must be extremely windy normally. It was still beautiful though, with very clear water. Then we went to Cape Point and climbed up a small hill to get to the lighthouse and see from the highest point. It was also so beautiful, but less windy which was very nice. It had a cool pole with street signs indicating the directions of the world’s most famous cities (NYC, London. Beijing, etc). It was such a cool idea.

Once we’d seen the two Capes, we went to Boulder beach where there’s a penguin colony. They were so adorable! we walked out on a board-walk-esque structure and the penguins were sitting all around it. Most of them were either sunbathing or molting. We couldn’t pet them as they would bite you but it was still cool to be so close to a penguin without a glass wall or wires between us. The beach there was also absolutely gorgeous, with such clear water and pretty rocks all along. After we saw the penguins, we went to a restaurant famous for its seafood. They served us some sort of fish which was good, but there was something funky about it. They also had more kalamari, which was breaded, and I liked that one a bit better. This was also good food, but I liked the food from Spier better.

When I got back, some friends wanted to go on a sunset cruise. So we went on a small boat with a cool guy from Australia and went out into the ocean to see the sun set. It was quite beautiful, but there was a large wall of cloud hovering on the horizon so we never actually saw it set on the ocean. Nevertheless, it was beautiful, though the sunrise was much prettier.