Cape Town

Day 4:
What a beautiful city Cape Town is. Nestled between the mountains and the Atlantic ocean, it is an immaculately clean city. We are staying at the Victoria and Alfred Hotel, right in the middle of the Harbor. We have a "pet" seal who lives on the dock outside of our room. There are hundreds of beautiful shops and fantastic restaurants all within walking distance.

We left the hotel very early (again - remember this is a Clay Heckler Bootcamp vacation) to take a walk into the mountains with a naturalist to see the endangered Chaka Baboons. It was a great hike, we paused among the baboons and they came right by us, brushing our legs. One of them had a baby that was only 2 weeks old. She was strong enough to hang on underneath her mother who trekked her around as if she weren't there! Totally adorable. They are endangered because they break into people's homes, open their refrigerators, eat all the food and leave behind a terrible mess. So people shoot them or turn the dogs on them. This conservation group had raised money to keep them in the wild by hiring trackers (tribal people who would not have a job) to keep them up in the mountains in their natural habitat. The unemployment rate is 43 percent here, so they are doing a lot about trying to create jobs.

In the afternoon, we went to see the African Penguins and had a lunch on the beach nearby and tried a local specialty called Malva pudding, similar to our alltime favorite: Sticky Toffee pudding. Then our guide, Clive, took us out to the Cape of Good Hope. Although it is not technically the southermost point, it is roughly where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans merge. It was very beautiful, as all of the area is.