South Africa Vacation

Here's a few snapshots of our vacation in Cape Town, South Africa earlier this month. It was a beautiful place with great weather and so much to see and do. It was great for us to feel that we were no different from anyone else, and Cape Town is so "western" that we had almost no culture stress. In many ways, it felt like being back in the States. We could even drink water from the taps - a real luxury! We loved the aquarium, play grounds, restaurants, shopping, Dutch colonial architecture, and the concert in the botanical gardens. It was truly a great vacation even if it took us 2 days to get there.

Here we are on the top of Table Mountain, where we all got sunburned but still had fun taking the cable car up the mountain and hiking around.

Look closely: did you know there are penguins in Africa? I sure didn't. There is even a beach where you can swim with them, and although we didn't get to go down we could watch folks tanning and playing on the beach alongside the penguins. I never thought I would see people in swimming suits hanging out cordially with penguins. On the ferry to Robben Island, I also saw some floating on top of the water, kind of like ducks.

Here we are at Robben Island Prison, in the cell across the hall where Nelson Mandela was held as a political prisoner for 18 years. Jack looks pretty happy here, but he tossed his cookies on the ferry on the way home. He's genetically inclined toward motion sickness thanks to my mom. Otherwise it was a good and eye-opening morning, and gave us an appreciation for our freedom regardless of our beliefs.