Great views and bad jumps

2 days in and we love our new CT, Cape Town South Africa. We have had some interesting experiences, true to African style, but have really enjoyed ourselves throughout. 

We arrived in T-shirts and shorts after enjoying a great New England summer. The weather was cold and wet. At least we looks good while we shivered. Our apartment and landlord were great, and cold. This will be a nice, not quite cozy, place to stay. Then we went for our walk to downtown.

We walked through some gorgeous gardens, where we saw a rubber tree, baby ducks and aggressive, obese grey squirrels. On our trip through downtown, there were equally aggressive pan handling poor. One threatened Jason with the following dialogue:

"I have a great 64MB flash drive for sale"

"no thank you"

"come on man, I have a family to feed"

"I wish you luck"

"do you want me to take out my knife and take your money from you?"

"what?"

he repeats himself with more enthusiasm

"are you kidding me?"

"come on man! Just buy my flash drive"

"I don't have any cash, go away"

Grumbles

However, the trip to the town was great. The architecture was an interesting combination of Dutch, French and African. We loved the brick walks and cool sites. 

The next day, we went on a "hop on hop off" bus tour to see a bird and monkey estate, a beautiful Hout Bay with independently minded people, and a wonderful waterfront with our first fermented craft-juice experience (a brewery). 

The birds and monkey estate is clearly owned by the animals despite the efforts put in my the 19th century guy who overcame dog and baboon attacks, and government intervention to build his refuge. Now, the place largely takes in injured animals, nurses them back to health and releases them if they are a species that can be released. Despite her persistent fear, Jessica really enjoyed the contact area with the monkeys. She claims this fear is more of a respect to the animal kingdom, but Jason's arm begs to differ. Her fear also may have been caused by a bird that landed on her head. Jason's favorite part was the exercising honey badger. No one was going stop him from getting in his workout, not even the miniature cage they put him in. Go honey badgers!

Hout bay is famous for its independent people. During Apartheid, they manufactured their own passports to separate themselves from the rest of the country. We enjoyed their soul food / American food combination. At least we know the cooks are still independent! Garlic sides on a chicken and cranberry pizza were quite memorable. However, it was the cream spinach and squash that we really enjoyed (this is our weight loss phase). The image below is us attempting a jumping picture in Hout Bay. 

We finished up at a waterfront brewery. It left much to be desired, but the waterfront was beautiful!

A great day an we certainly gained our bearings for a fun trip ahead. 

Jason & Jessica

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