We have had a couple of very interesting days. The weather has improved. On Thursday we had a drive to the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Point and a penguin colony.
We start by driving east out of the city along the coast. Along the way we pass the rugged coast dotted with beautiful homes overlooking the sea. We pass a number of suburbs and some shanty towns that have grown up nearby. As people get jobs in the suburban areas they build shacks to live in so they don’t have to commute. As there is no public transportation people have to use taxis. These taxis work within specific areas, so you might have to take 2 or 3 depending on where you work and live. It also may take up to 1.5 hours to make the trip. This means people are spending anywhere from 60 to 100 Rand round trip to get to work, this to earn 150 rand a day! 150 Rands is roughly $15US. We see groups of men standing and sitting around the intersections. They are waiting for work, if anyone needs manual laborers they will drive by and pick up the men for a day’s work.

As we drive along the coast we see a promenade, a large swimming pool and “tidal pools” the tidal pools are enclosed areas built in the sea to provide protected swimming areas. Our guide says not many people swim here as the sea is too cold and too dangerous.the sea temperature is normally 9 – 10 C. The tides are not high here and there are no issues with earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, cyclones etc. so Cape Town is a good place to live, much safer than Jonhanassburg which is the business capital of SA. There is no coral here, we see seals and evidence of kelp forests and rafts.
We drive by a big white sand beach (long beach). As we get to the cape park we drive through areas of scrubby growth that reminds us of Scotland’s moors or the tundra. There are lots of hiking and bicycle trails through the park but most of it is inaccessible to preserve the flora and the animal life. We see wild ostrich, baboons, some elands. We are in the Cape of Good Hope National Park which is 700 hectares.
We stopped at an ostrich farm. We have seen Ostrich eggs for sale all over, some are painted, some made into lamps, some have baby ostriches sitting in them, some are plain. A female ostrich can lay up to 60 eggs a year. At the farm they will steal eggs from the nest, leaving just 1 or 2 and when the female returns she will lay more. Apparently they are really stupid, their brain being smaller than their eye.
The Cape is dramatic, beautiful scenes. This is not the most southern point in SA and is not where the seas meet. There are statues and beacons honoring Da Gama and another early explorer. The most southern point and where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet is about 200 kms east at Cape Agulhas.
After our visit to the Cape we stop at a penguin colony, home to the African Penguin, which range along the Africa southern coasts.
Today we visited Table Mountain which we can see and go up for the first time since we arrived. Beautiful views in every direction. The mountain is flat on top and there are many trails we can follow. We did see some people hiking up! As we went up in the cable car we saw them starting put, on our way down 1.5 hours later they were just reaching the steep section.

Last thoughts about SA.
There were indigenous people here before the Portuguese arrived, the Koli
Aparteid had been in place long before the forced movement of blacks to the Townships, there were laws on the books dating back to the early 1900s. For some reason not enforced until the 1960s, there was no precipitating event we could find out about. Seems some whites wanted to get their hands on some desirable land.
There are land claim issues, we read about some of these. It really does not sound much different from other countries, except those displaced are the majority of the population unlike USA, Canada, Australia, where the issues sound the same.

Now we start the long trip home. Hope the weather has improved!