Cape Town

WOW. What an amazing time we have been having in Cape Town with Nickie and Carole - not only are they great friends but they are awesome tour guides. I'll take you through everything we have done day by day.....

9/25 - Nickie had to work today so she dropped us off at the quite famous waterfront area of the city. Carole had gotten us free passes to the Two Oceans Aquarium through her work at SANCCOB (The Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds). What better way to introduce yourself to a new environment than to check out the local exoskeletons and fins? So we spent a few hours there before wandering over to Mitchell's - one of two brewpubs in Cape Town. We sampled the local brews (millions of times better than anything in Asia) and listened to some great local street musicians. It was freezing for us folks that are now adapted to the tropics, so we headed inside to grab a hot beverage after drinking the cold brews. When Nickie picked us up we headed over to the school she teaches at for a celebration the school was having. Actually, we arrived for the celebration for the alumna (it is a girls school) and the teachers - most of the students had already left. So we were able to met a lot of Nickie's coworkers and friends AND gorge on loads of super yummy cheese and wine.

9/26 - We headed to work at SANCCOB with Carole today. We were still jet-lagged, so we only spent a half a day here helping out where we could. SANCCOB has many functions, but the key purpose of this organization is to rehabilitate sea birds that come into the center sick, orphaned, or oiled. The primary species they take care of is the African penguin (formally known as the jackass penguin), although when we were there they also had "Rocky" the rockhopper penguin, a black-browed albatross (that they released that day!), and a few cormorants and gulls. Want to check out their website? Here it is: http://www.sanccob.co.za/
Anyway, Carole is the volunteer coordinator there, although I am under the impression that she does A LOT more than that at the center. She had us shadow some of the volunteers or employees for the morning. We did a lot of scrubbing, because you have to keep these places clean in order to keep the birds healthy. I also took off the rubber boots and helped folks in the office prepare signs and paperwork for the "Penguin Festival" that as starting up the following day. The best part about that was Rocky, the rockhopper penguin. He chilled out with us in the office like a regular office employee. Although most good employees don't leave little green bits of poo along the floor. It was awesome to stop, give him a scratch under the chin, and then go back to helping them make signs. Jay and I both hope to get back another day and help them out a bit more with the birds! The two of us spent the afternoon back at their house, relaxing and trying to catch up on random stuff. Nickie "dragged" us out to a bar overlooking the city and the ocean and we grabbed some beer. Then we stopped at a grocery store, which I found to be VERY exciting. We bought our own food to COOK for ourselves. And we bought wine. Wow. South African wine is reasonably priced and damn good. AND - we have been deprived, so deprived, of good wine. So, over a dinner that we cooked in their kitchen, we toasted the things I am thrilled to have back in my life: toilet paper, toilet seats, shower doors, and wine.

9/27 - Carole was working down along the Cape of Good Hope at a spot called Boulders, where there is an African penguin colony. So we drove down the coast to meet her for lunch. Along the way we stopped to watch whales. Southern right whales are EVERYWHERE. We have been quite amazed at how close they chill out to the beaches. So we watched a few large whales wave their flippers from the shore and marveled at these large critters. Then we walked around a cute town called Simon's Town and stopped for some hot beverages (yup - still freezing here). Once we met Carole for lunch, we took a walk along a boardwalk and checked out all the local penguins. What a beautiful sight! Penguins, the blue Atlantic (actually False Bay), and the mountains coast. It was great. We whipped up another fantastic dinner tonight and might have had wine with it, again.

9/28 - The entire time we have been here, Nickie and Carole have been awaiting a call from a couple they are friends with. It was the "babysitting call", because this couple was expecting another nugget to arrive any minute and they needed Nickie or Carole to come and watch over their other kid when thy headed to the hospital. That call arrived this morning! So, we dropped Nickie off for her babysitting duties and we borrowed her car to explore Table Mountain National Park, specifically the Cape of Good Hope (they call it Cape Point). We had a grand day because of two things, the incredible scenery and wildlife and because it was SUNNY and warm. Yahoo! When we walked along one of the many trails in the park we were lucky enough to spot a breaching right whale. What a treat! This peninsula is super craggy and cliffy with blue water below that is loaded with kelp. You can imagine how beautiful it is! So we spent the day exploring this area, walking along the cliffs and watching whales directly below us. By the end of the day we actually saw three different right whales breach, very cool eh?

9/29 - We were pretty lucky to spend the day with a few of Nickie's friends (teachers) from her school. They were leading a trip to a local township (also known as informal settlements, or shanty towns) in Cape Town for a few visiting high school students from Australia and we were able to tag along. The day started at St. George's Cathedral, the center point for many of the protests against apartheid that were lead by Desmond Tutu (the famous Archbishop of this church) and moved on to the Maryland Literacy Programme. This program was really neat to learn about, here is their website if you want to know more - http://www.adultlit.co.za
Basically, this organization teaches people to read and write, and then provides training to these folks so they can become literacy facilitators. It is a non-profit organization run by a few nuns, although they do not preach Christianity, they focus on reading and writing! The head nun was a joy to talk to and it was really wonderful to hear about how something so many of us take for granted (literacy) can really empower people and give them back much of their dignity.
After this visit we ate lunch in another township at a place that a woman opened up to try and make a better life for herself and her family. So by eating a simple meal, we were able to put some money into the pockets of the women employed by this small restaurant. And then we headed to Mamma Amelia's orphanage. This woman started taking orphans into her home and raising them and now her home has expanded to house as many as 100 orphans at a time. She works almost entirely off of donations to feed and dress these children. In addition to our group donating money, we also brought a bunch of veggies to help them cook up some stew for the kids. The kids were a riot, lots of them wanted to stroke my hair (there was still a surprising amount of interest in blondes) and everyone wanted their photo taken so they could make funny faces and laugh at themselves.

Nickie has loads of plans for our schedules in the upcoming days. I can't even keep track of it all. But some of the days will hopefully involve whale watching, great white shark cage diving, camping, wine tasting, and many many good conversations.