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Days 30-31: Penguins, Rainbows, and a Stealthy Baboon

6/10/2013

3 Comments

 
The storm brought forth it's finale on our third day in South Africa - gale force winds, hail and rain. During the hail storm, we were at the Two Oceans Aquarium,  watching the penguins freak out due to the noise the hail made on the tin roof over their habitat. It was pretty funny. They would look up, nervously, at the ceiling and then waddle in and out of their little huts. It was like the cartoons where one of the characters would run back and forth in a panic until the more level-headed character gave him a good slap across the face to calm him down. But sadly, no one could calm down these little guys. 

The hail only lasted about 5 minutes and then things went back to normal, but some of the penguins remained cautious and confused.  Here are some photos/videos:
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This one waddled right up to the fence where I was sitting.
The penguins above did not trust the lady feeding them and she eventually gave up. I think they were paranoid from hail storm and they had a baby in their cave.

The aquarium was the perfect activity for a rainy day. We saw lots of different fish - many from the Indian Ocean which were new to us. They had a great shark exhibit and at 3pm we watched the divers feed the sharks.  This sounded great in theory, but it wasn't as exciting as we had anticipated. 
After the Aquarium, we drove to the Hotel Mt. Nelson for high tea. This was my first time having high tea and I enjoyed it very much! 
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High Tea at Mt. Nelson
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Mt. Nelson sun room
The clouds started to break apart by sunset, but it was still raining & windy.  We drove to the west side of town and watched the sunset from the car which was spectacular! I didn't have my good camera with me, so the pictures don't do it justice.
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Lovely sunset after the storm
Penguins & Rainbows
The next day was far less rainy, so we decided to drive down to the Cape of Good Hope. On the way, we stopped at a penguin colony and enjoyed watching the penguins in their natural habitat. If it didn't start to rain, I could have watched them for another hour!  
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A couple of penguins stray from the colony.
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Penguin under the rainbow
BaBOOn!
After visiting the penguins, we drove throughout Cape Point National park, where we saw many different animals and stunning views of the ocean.   At one point, I was taking a picture of the cliffs and a baboon appeared very close in my lens. I was so startled, I let out a little yell, grabbed Chris and ran away.  We then turned around (from a safer distance) and I snapped a couple shots of the baboon.  There were some locals parked nearby that found this very funny and told us that as long as we didn't have food in our bags, the baboons wouldn't bother us.  Although we didn't have food on us, we still didn't feel any better about being 20 feet away from a big baboon and walked back to the car. 
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The sneaky baboon that scared the daylights out of me
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Off he goes to surprise other tourists!
Our pictures might be hanging in Pakistan
When we were at the Cape of Good Hope, a bus full of Pakistani tourists pulled up.  There must have been 30 guys, taking pictures and enjoying the view.  Chris and I were navigating our way across the rocks to get back to our car when two of the guys stopped us and asked for a picture (they didn't speak English - they just showed us their camera). Chris figured they wanted him to take a picture of them so he smiled, said yes and went to grab the camera. One of the guys said no and pointed at him and the other guy. Chris was confused and then realized the other guy wanted a picture with him. So he posed for the picture - smiling with some random dude from Pakistan. Then the guy gave his friend the camera and stood next to me indicating he wanted a picture with me.  Before I knew it,  he was next to me smiling and his friend snapped a picture.  They thanked us and then ran toward the ostrich and started snapping photos with the bird.  

We started laughing once we got back to the car, thinking about the stories they might tell about us when sharing photos from their holiday. They didn't even know what country we were from.  We imagined the voiceover when they shared the photos with their families - Here is the Cape of Good Hope, here is an ostrich, here are some odd looking foreigners - the man was 8 feet tall and the girl had crazy hair, here is a rainbow.  I wish we took a picture with them!

A Beautiful Drive
The rest of the drive was just stunning. Check out some of the photos below. 
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An ostrich welcomes us to the Cape of Good Hope.
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Another rainbow!
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One of the many beautiful coves along the Cape.
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Cat Eyes
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The sunset on the drive home.
We finished the day at the Royale Eatery, a gourmet burger place on Long Street, before heading off to the Winelands the next morning.
3 Comments
Jen
6/10/2013 12:32:21 am

I am reading this at my desk - and probably shouldn't be - and you had me laughing out loud with the story about the tourists from Pakistan. So funny. Also, the pictures are amazing! It looks cold, what has the weather been like? And did you put your feet in the water at all? Miss you guys! xo

Reply
Eva & Chris
6/10/2013 09:43:38 pm

Hi!! We miss you too and wish you were here with us! The weather in Cape Town was chilly at night (maybe 40's) and during the day when it wasn't raining it was really nice - in the 60's - really comfortable for walking around and hiking. We didn't put our feet in the water in Cape Town or the Cape of Good Hope but we put our whole bodies in the water when we dove with the sharks in Gansbaai. We were very close to the point where the Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean when we dove. Needless to say, the water was freezing!!!

Reply
maria Wallman
6/11/2013 04:01:46 am

Those are amazing pictures we stayed right near the cape of good hope we also stayed at the Hilton in downtown Capetown you have a picture with table mountain. In the background . I was laughing. Just thinking of you Lexie and the baboon They also like to take cameras. Bc they are curious. At least that what we were told Enjoy. Lol

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    Eva has been traveling for 15+ years, including an 8 month journey around the world.  

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