The Adventures of Courtney and Arthur: Hello from Cape Town

I have been living in Cape Town, South Africa for the last week. Bebeth and Mark have been kind enough to let me live with them in their apartment for three weeks. Cape Town is a different side of Africa. One more similar to home. It is like any city around the world but even better. It is amazingly beautiful! It is surrounded by Table Mountain National Park on one side and the ocean on the other. We are living in Green Point which is on the side of Signal Hill (part of Table Mountain National Park). From the apartment you can see the ocean and the mountains. We are a 15 minute walk from downtown, 5 minute walk from Sea Point (any kind of shop you could want) and a beautiful walk along the ocean. Bebeth and Mark are in heaven since Cape Town has great restaurants, many big groceries, and anything you want only a few minutes walk away. This is a welcome change from Kenya for them. My favorite part of Cape Town is the easy access to beautiful outdoors. We are a 5 minute walk from Table Mountain National Park and a beautiful walkway along the ocean (my favorite place to run every morning), and hour drive from Cape of Good Hope, and 40 minutes from Penguins! To give you an idea why I love this place Bebeth and I go for a run every morning along the ocean. One morning we had to one side the amazing backdrop of Signal Hill and Lions Head, to the other side we had huge waves crashing along the walkway spraying up, and off on the ocean is rain crating a rainbow. Can it get any better you ask? Yes! About 100 feet away are 20 Right Whales playing in the waves! Yes Bebeth and I were typical tourists (or lovers of nature) jumping up and down pointing and watching them slap their flippers and flash their flukes Running doesn’t get much better than that!

This weekend we rented a car and explored the area. To get any where around Cape Town you either drive along curvy roads along the ocean (reminds me of the coast of Maine) or you drive over beautiful mountains passes. Saturday we went and saw the Penguins at Bolder Beach. The African Penguins (used to be known as Jackass Penguins) nest on a beach along the coast where you can observe them from boardwalks. They are very entertaining to watch. Penguins out of water are not very graceful and you can spend hours watching them waddling around in lines tripping and falling. They got their old name from their loud calls that sound just like a donkey, which is very funny to see coming out of a little penguin. Sunday we drove out to the Cape of Good Hope. It is early spring here and everything is starting to bloom. The landscape is low shrubs, grass, and wild flowers. It is what we think of as above the tree line back home. There are rolling hills leading to cliffs and beautiful beaches covered in purple, yellow, and red of flowering bushes. It was enchanting now but in a few weeks it will be spectacular. Bebeth, Mark and I hiked out to the Cape of Good Hope but quickly retreated because like our national parks at home there were tons of tourists. But also like home if you go a few feet off the path there is no one. So we walked down 200 stairs to a deserted beach for lunch. The sand was soft as could be and we had the back drop of huge crashing waves on one side and cliffs on the other with three ostrich eating their way along the top. Life doesn’t get much better this.