Day 22: July 15, Cape Town Coastline

Twas a long day today. We took a grand driving tour of the Cape and it was fabulous. We started with an early morning tour of the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, and some of South Africa's most gorgeous flowers. Even though it is winter, the few blooms that were happening were stunning I wasn't aware that Cape Town was one of the most prolific floral zones in the world!) The bird life was amazing too - we were spoiled at how close we could approach the birds here, since they're so used to people milling about.
We then continued along the western coast of the cape, passing through the famous Constantia wine district. (I'd never heard of it, but apparently it was Napoleon's favorite wine.) We stopped at one overlook where we saw dozens of surfers in the cold waters, and we chatted with a professional "shark spotter." (If you look at the photo below, all the small dots in the water on the top left side of the photo are surfers.)
The shark spotters along the coast are former homeless / unemployed people who, well, spot sharks and call down warnings to the guys on the beach below. He was such a nice guy, our shark spotter, and his name was "Innocence."

We then went to visit a colony of African Penguins at Simon's Town:
Even the fuzzy babies were still around:These guys were not shy either, and this one wandered to about 3 feet from me... that's the only reason I got a closeup (I had brought my wide lens this day.)

Did you know that they mate for life? How romantic...A rare shot of a penguin egg - just under her belly: So gorgeous...We then hit the mandatory Kodak Picture Spot at the Cape of Good Hope (I'm grimacing because I'm blind.)And then we hiked to the top of the cape. The point closest to us is Cape Point, and off in the distance, you can see the hazy shape of Cape Agulas - the southernmost tip of Africa.

Cheezy photo time: The baboons in this area are very aggressive, and we were not allowed to bring any food or even bottles of water up to the area... the baboons would snatch them right out of your hand. We even had to chase them away from our van at the restaurant that we stopped at for lunch, as they were encroaching on our vehicle trying to climb inside to rummage through our bags.

The drive home was equally gorgeous, and very reminiscent of the Oregon and northern California coastline:

I didn't forget to take the sunset again... I know you can't get enough...