South Africa - Part 2 - For the kids

Did you know that they have penguins in Africa? I didn't!They're so cute!

Check out the video. You're really going to like it.


There were adult and baby penguins all over the beach that day. The babies were furry and didn't have a white belly (just like the one in the poster below).I also got to see zebras on my way to the cheetah sanctuary. This is a cheetah. In this place cheetahs are rescued from hunters and cared for until they are ready to go back into the wild. The ones who cannot go back (because they've become too nice) become part of an educational program to teach people about cheetahs and the fact that they are endangered animals. In this place you actually get to pet one.Next door to the cheetah sanctuary was a birds of prey sanctuary. There I got to pet this pretty eagle. He might look mean, but he's not really.

This one is called a secretary bird. I joked that she takes the notes from the rest of the birds in the compound. You can see her beautiful eyelashes if you enlarge the picture.

This cute baby owl was taking flight lessons for the daily bird show. The trainer wanted him to fly from the perch to his arm to eat a little piece of meat, but he wasn't that interested. The trainer said that the baby owl knew he would get a snack whether he flew or not, so it was hard to convince him to do any flying. He might be lazy, but he's still cute. Ostriches are everywhere in South Africa. This one decided to cross the road ahead of us just as we were driving by. People here like to carve empty ostrich eggs or put light bulbs inside them to make lamps. Very cool.

South Africa - Part 1 - The Adult stuff

Raquel just came back from 2 weeks in South Africa on a business trip. Here are a few of the cool pictures and videos that she brought back.

This is Cape Town, an old Dutch colony at the foot of Table Mountain. This is a shot of the marina looking at Table Mountain in the background. Raquel's hotel is the tallest white structure behind the light blue building on the left side of the picture. On the weekend Raquel got to go to the top of the mountain.

This is Raquel's co-worker, Steve. Joining Raquel and Steve in this picture is Mervin, their driver for the 2 weeks, who Raquel learned this day was a Christian. It was pretty neat, Mervin came to Raquel and asked, "are you a believer?" Raquel said yes, and then he said, "washed by the blood?" Raquel said yes, and then he said "I knew it, I felt it in my spirit." So we got a warm invitation to stay in his house next time we are in South Africa.

After Table Mountain, Raquel got to go to the Cape of Good Hope. As you can see, not the most Southern tip of Africa, but the "most south-western point" of Africa. A little bit of local learning: Raquel learned that there is another location which is actually the most southern point of the continent where the locals get pretty upset because they constantly get upstaged by Cape of Good Hope.

Raquel also got to see a few of the famous South African wineries. She went just to taste the grape juice and eat cheese, but the stuff was so good that she got drunk...... no not really .... but she did bring back some really good wine. Her favorite winery was this one (Fairfield) with a beautiful main house, gorgeous gardens and where you could walk among the vines. (Yes - my honey is a sucker for a pretty garden, as you can tell by all the pictures of our own garden on the blog.)

The goat is a part of the label for the bottles. (Neil says they use him to stomp the grapes.)There was a historical winery that had the old giant wood wine vats first constructed by the Portuguese. This place also had some beautiful carvings at the ends of the barrels telling the story of wine making in South Africa. There were over a dozen carved barrels in a room called "The Chapel" where they do parties and have classical music playing all the time.

Here is Raquel experiencing a little bit of local culture. This restaurant called "Mama Africa" served dishes from all over the continent. This is a shot of the menu. You don't actually choose the dish, they bring you one of each kind just for you to try.