Cape Town, Thurs. Feb 11, 2010

So, we have skipped any detail of Feb 10 because that was the day we travelled from Victoria Falls to Cape Town via Johannesburg.  The only exciting thing that happened was that Sarah and Marci saw a Dung beetle for the first time!  We had packed all the cameras already, so no photos taken by us, but here is a stock internet photo.  I never knew they rolled the dung ball with their back legs, backing up the whole time.   It was quite amazing to watch.  In the one we saw, the dung ball was larger than the beetle!

We spent Feb 11th seeing the sights around Cape Town.  It was an amazing day!  Very tiring and packed full of exciting things.

Kids joking around at a store.  Note the countries represented - England, South Africa and USA.

Sarah writes:
We were supposed to go to Robben Island today, but the waves were five meters tall and all the ferrys were cancelled.  It was too bad because it was the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison.

View of Table Mountain from the 19th floor of our hotel.

From the cable car with a rotating floor.  Very steep and fast ascent!

Today we went up to Table Mountain.  We took a cable car up and the floor spun slowly around so we saw all around us.  When we got to Table Mountain, we could see everything.  It was the first day Table Mountain wasn't covered in clouds for over a week.  It was really pretty and high up.

View of Cape Town with Robben Island just off the coast, from the top of Table Mountain

Even the locals think this is pretty high!

We then started to drive around the southern tip of Africa.  We had fish and chips at Houts Bay and got our legs wet in the Atlantic Ocean.

Notice the thatched roof on the REALLY big and expensive looking house.  Cape Town was absolutely lovely!

We then drove to Boulders Beach where there was at leat 100 African penguins.  We saw them laying down, making nests, laying eggs and sitting on eggs.  We then went swimming with the penguins in the Indian Ocean.  It was pretty cool to be in two different oceans in the same day.

There are only 4 types of penguins.  These are African penguins... creative naming, huh?  They are monogamous and mate for life.

Many eggs were seen.  Males and females take turns sitting on the eggs then going out to get food.

It was amazing how close we could get to the penguins, and how close they would come up to us!

Don't worry, they really aren't petting it.  Looks like it though and they are close...

We then drove to the Cape of Good Hope, but we got there 15 minutes after closing, so we didn't get to see the Indian Ocean meeting the Atlantic Ocean.  After, we went to dinner on the waterfront.  We then saw the Sea Rescue station in Cape Town and went inside the building where we got to see the rescue boats.

The president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, gave a State of the Union speech to open the current session of Parliament and Nelson Mandela was there.  We got caught in all the traffic for this when we were trying to go to dinner.  All the members of Parliament are staying at our hotel.  We didn't see Nelson Mandela, though.