Journey to Cape Town

I've neglected my blog for a long time- but I really want to do a few posts about my recent trip to Cape Town.  I was originally scheduled for a conference.  The conference was cancelled, but Leon and I have long wanted to see South Africa, so off we went.

The flight is reaaaaallly long.  We went via London with a travel time of 23 hours.  We arrived in Cape Town at 7 in the morning on a gorgeous sunny day. We checked into our hotel, and rather than napping to releive jet lag, we jumped right into our rented powder blue Fiat and headed east along the coast of False Bay.

There are spots to pull of of the road for whale viewing.  We didn't see any whales, but we did get a great introduction to fynbos (FEN-bows), the predominant native ecosystem in this part of South Africa.

A coupl1e of cool things about fynbos:  it's one of the most botanically diverse ecosystems on the planet and many of the plants are very familiar house and garden plants.  We saw tons of varieties of geraniums (actually pelargoniums) growing in their native habitats.

Of course there were also butterflies.  We didn't see many on this day. but I did get photos of the Burnished Opal, a South African specialty.

We spet the afternoon driving along the coast, strolling on the rocky shore and enjoying the sunshine, flora, and fauna.  It was an auspicious start to the trip.  Leon was even reasonably patient with me as I learned to drive on the left.