Sunday, November 7th

Today we got up to go on a tour of the area.  Our guide Rob is half English and half Afrikaans.  He was very funny all day!  He kept giving us a quiz on what we remembered him saying!  My dad did great on this!
We stopped at Haut harbor for a boat ride out to Seal Beach were we were able to see the Cape Seals!  While we were there we could see some babies laying up on the rocks.  We then went to Boulder national park and walked among a colony of African Jackass Penguins.  They sound just like a donkey!  We saw some that were molting so they have to stay on land for a long time while they grow new swimming feathers.  They also have an internal thermometer indicating when they get too hot.  Their eyes turn bright red.  We also drove out to Cape Point which is the sothwestern most point in Africa.  If you go east you run into Perth Australia, west you end up in Rio de Janero, Brazil and if you go south you end up in the Antartic.  We also went to the Cape of Good Hope.  Here we walked up to the light house and along the way we ran into a Puff Adder.  This is one of the deadlist snakes in the world!  If it bites you, you will die within an hour unless you get help.  While we were driving to Table Mountain we ran into a couple of different troops of baboons.  One big one climbed up onto the van we were in.  My mom was in the front seat with the window open!  The windows in this van move very slowly!  He then climbed up onto the roof and we had to wait for him to leave.  Later we saw another troop and this one included some babies including one that was so young it could not hold on to mom too well.  She needed to be carried, so her mom ran using on 2 feet and 1 arm instead of 2!  She was still pretty fast!  At Table Mountain we road a cable car that rotated a full circle on our way up the mountain.  At the top we could see all of Cape Town andwe were even lucky enough to see a couple of Dassies.  These are small animals that look like woodchucks but are actually the closest relative to the elephant.
We are now down with our tour of South Africa.  Tomorrow we will begin our very long trip home.  After about 17 hours of flying plus time in airports we will be home!  I will see all my friends in school soon.  My mom and dad will put pictures on my blog and then you all can see what I have seen.