Strange sights and happenings

There is always something interesting to see when you are driving down the road. Here are a few of the weird things we've seen.


This may not seem that strange to anyone else, but this struck us as kind of funny. This is a men working sign--which shows that the men working along the side of the road are usually using a shovel or pick. You don't see much heavy equipment although we did see some men shoveling dirt into the big bucket of the front-end loader so it could move the dirt away.
We love this slow down sign - we see it every morning as we are moving down the freeway at about 5 kph. You can see the traffic all backed up in the merging lane. That is Table Mountain in the background with a lovely table cloth (that's what everyone says here when the clouds are on top). There's a phone by the SOS sign---those show up about every 10 or 15 kilometers although they don't need them much now because everyone has a cell phone.

This was definetly the funniest of all--we saw these men riding to work in the back of this truck and we felt so sorry for them. Not much of a transport to work. Elder Herbert said--Take a picture of those men in the truck. So I did----but when they saw me taking a picture of them, the man with the light colored hat took out his cell phone and took a picture of us!! We realized we look pretty strange to them too! Then we all laughed at each other and waved!!!

Kids and foods and fun.

These girls were dancing to their mother's drum beat and sister was playing a rattle type instrument made of a plastic bottle and rocks (I think). They were making a little money from people who passed by. I did take a little video, but it isn't very good. We've seen a few people doing this dancing in all the little market places.


This is at Green Market Square which is a kind of flea market where the native people sell their wares. This tiny little one was under the tables when we went by the first time, but later we saw her "working" out in the walkway. She was too little to really be doing anything, but she was pretending to straighten the blankets. Her hair is in the cutest little kind of "knots" all over her head.



When I picked up a little drum and started playing it, she came right over and wanted to take it away from me. I think she wanted to show me how to do it. We played with it for a minute and then she decided that was too boring and found something else to do.

This man was at Green Market Square too. He was balancing this huge thing on his head ---it was made of fruit and toys and things. I don't know if he was selling things. He was just kind of like a clown dancing around with the kids and getting his picture taken.

Lots of people have asked how the food is here, so I thought I would show a couple of pictures we've taken. This is called "Bobotie" - it is kind of an upside down shepherd's pie. It was kind of like a rice on the bottom and then spicy curry meatloaf stuff in the middle, and then lots of cheese on the top. Elder Herbert was the only one willing to try something "scary" and it turned out pretty good. This was a pretty nice restaurant at Cape Point.

This is the salad they served with the Bobotie - pretty good, huh with those huge chunks of feta!
The salads here are usually the best - I had one made with avocado and shrimp and tomato and a little bit of lettuce. MMMMMMMMMMMMMM good. They do set a nice table and give wonderful service--even though they are always disappointed we only drink water.

The Baboons

I'm trying to say - THIS MEANS YOU, ELDER HERBERT!!! PUT THAT SANDWICH AWAY!

Signs are posted all over saying things like this.

You have to look closely, but he is running down the hill. There were actually two or three of them, but I only managed one in each picture. They move very quickly. The park brochure said that they go to the beach and feed on the little crustaceans there--which is not a normal thing for them to do.

After running down the hill, he calmly crossed the road heading toward the ocean. The tour bus occupants came to a stop and waited and watched him.

This little guy was sitting beside the road far down the road from the others. Here we saw signs saying, "Baboons are dangerous animals. Do not feed them!" He was definitely waiting for a hand-out. You'll have to double-click and check out his facial expression. The ocean is probably 200 yards away behind the bushes.

The Whale

It was very hard to get a good picture of the whale. We watched him for about 15 minutes trying to catch a good pose!! Our friends had binoculars and we were watching with those part of the time and not snapping pictures. We were probably about 1000 feet above him, but it gave us such a good view of him. He was rolling and diving and just having a wonderful time. Anyway, that's what it looked like to us. We think he was small, but he could be bigger than he seems here.

More About the Cape of Good Hope

You'll have to go to my one of my earlier posts to hear and see the point where the lighthouse is.





This is the only picture we took of the lighthouse. It is on a very high cliff overlooking both oceans. The left is the Indian Ocean and to the right is the Atlantic. It was built in the early 1800s.

On top they have a signpost with directions and kilometers to various places in the world. Elder Harms took the picture and he cut off the other places, but New York is showing---12, 541 km which is only about 7,525 miles. I can't exactly swim it! It also had Rio de Janiero, Calcutta, and Tokyo---we'll go again and get a better picture.
It's less than and hour's drive from our flat.

This shows the path we came up to the lighthouse and some of the lookout points along the way. We rode a tram up about 1000 feet (vertically) and then had to walk the rest of the way up about 500 ft. (also vertical) It was breathtaking. Double-click this picture and it will give you an idea.

Trip to the Cape of Good Hope

Here I am in the Victoria Wharf Mall. I just wanted you to see what nice stores they have. This store sells African specialty items. Yup, you guessed it - too expensive for Grampa!!

We took off on a fun trip to see the Cape Point. This is us driving---no I'm just kidding. This is a pretty good example of the morning traffic on our way to the office. As we drove to the Cape on our p-day, it was a pretty nice drive through several little resort towns.

We stopped in Fish Hoek to see the penguins and got a few pictures of them. We found that some of the signs about the animals were about as interesting as the animals!

Hope you can read the sign - it says "Please check under your car for sleeping penguins."

Near the penguins were a few little open tables like a flea market where we actually bought some trinkets! The people are so cute and you just want to help them out. Yes, family this is where we got some of your Christmas!!

We then drove on down the Cape to the Cape Point National Park. After entering, we stopped at a little museum about whales and all the animals on the cape. There we saw this ostrich roaming around behind the building.

This is the Cape Point - there is a lighthouse on a high cliff just behind this that we took the picture from. I'll put a pic of the lighthouse on the next post.