Thursday August 20, 2015 Cape Town

Cheryl, our guide for today, picked us up at 8 and we proceeded to Table Mountain on a beautiful clear day. These types of clear, sunny, not windy and warm days in the winter are quite unusual. Again Africa is kind to us.

Much of what is now Cape Town was water and was filled in to create more land.

Funbos (fine bush) shrub bushes are all over Table Mountain. Trees planted and it killed off natural flora. 9500 kinds of Funbos in the cape area.

Table was awesome. You can see cape of good hope and Cape Point where we will be later in the day. 3000 foot elevation. Cable car floor turns 360. No hurricanes or earthquakes in the cape.

This is a view of Cape Town and Table Mountain from the sea.

The view from the bottom of the cable car station up Table Mountain.

Lions head in the foreground and signal mountain in the background.

In the pic below the last thing you see is the Cape of Good Hope.

Fun Fact-Cape Malay is a term you hear in the area--it is for the predominately Muslim community. Slaves came from Malaysia and Indonesia. 

Then we proceeded on a beautiful coastal drive to arrive at this small fishing village (Hout Bay) where we took a short boat ride to see the seals.

I thought this was a cool photo. I have no idea what the yellow thing is.

Van will be happy that in South Africa, they have a politically correct "Gay Dolphin" store.

We then proceeded through the Table Mountain National park to Cape Point. Cape Point is just East of of the Cape of Good Hope. 

Table Mountain and the city of Cape Town are close to the northern extremity of the same peninsula. The cape is located at 34°21′26″S 18°29′51″EE, about 2.3 kilometres (1.4 mi) east and a little north of the Cape of Good Hope on the southwest corner.^[1] Although these two rocky and beautiful capes are very well known, neither cape is actually the southernmost point in Africa; that is Cape Agulhas, approximately 150 kilometres (93 mi) to the east-southeast.

We went to the Two Oceans restaurant. Superb seafood and a magnificent view. We then took a venicular up towards the lighthouse and climbed the steps to see this structure. We walked all the way down to the parking lot. At an overlook we saw whales. 

For David W!

Our second to the last stop was to see the African Penguins at Boulders Beach part of Simons Town-very stylish!

We ended our African Adventure in Fish Hoek (Hoek means corner) where we met Heidi Sulcas. Heidi was Mindy F's freshman roommate from Augusta, GA. We took a walk on th ebeach and then went to her home for a visit and a delicious dinner.

This dish she served is Bobotie which is. Capes lay dish of Ostrich meat and curry and dessert was malva pudding. 

What a wonderful way to end our trip!

Love to all. We are ready to return.

Hayes leaves for his Junior year on Sunday or Monday and Hannah leaves for her Gap year in 24 days.