The best thing about traveling is experiencing new things each day. Now that we are on the road again, those experiences are coming fast and furious again. It’s awesome. Today I got a chance to ride my dinner. This doesn’t happen at home. Cows, pigs, and chickens are pretty darn tough to ride. Ostrichs on the other hand, are a blast.

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The sun is directly overhead but it is cold. Since it has been warm all day, I don’t have my fleece on and the sweat on my back is giving me a chill. We are at an elevation of 4,000 feet. The wind is blowing at around 15 mph in a consistent southerly direction. The earth is red and rocky. There is no sound except for the wind blowing through the little vegetation that exists. Scrub in my laymen’s eyes. Dust is in the air and is making my throat dry. The mountainous landscape stretches like brain coral in all directions. We didn’t expect to find ourselves in this environment today. We have arrived in hell.

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Our time in Cape Town is getting short. At least our time in the Western Cape, as we are heading out to do the Garden Route next week. So today we headed north-east out of town for a drive that last just over an hour and a half. This is the heart of wine country here in the Cape. We have already visited Franschoek and Stellenbosch so today we go to Paarl.

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This is our last full week in Cape Town. Where the heck has the time gone? So it’s the week to catch up on all the little activities we told ourselves we were going to do while we are here. On the menu this week are birds, wine and walls.

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I have been looking forward to today for a week now. Today we got a chance to photograph our cleaning lady Angelina and her two beautiful daughters aged 7 and 12. Most of our portraits on the road haven’t been prearranged by any stretch of the imagination, so this was a first since leaving the US. While Angelina was thrilled to have a chance to have some portraits made, I honestly don’t think she realized what she said yes to.

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Table Mountain is probably the best named hunk of rock in the world. It is a 3,000 foot high mountain that towers above Cape Town, with smaller arms that reach out and hug the city from two sides. Thus the center of the city is often referred to as the city bowl. Most appropriately, given the name, the entire top of the mountain climbs straight up and stops flat. Table top flat. It is unmistakable and beautiful.

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It is amazing how much work we create for ourselves. We find ourselves spending time keeping up with accounting, filing and keywording our images, web-site building and upkeep as well as this web log. This does not even consider school work. It seems we are always behind in something. To be fair to ourselves, much of this routine is new to us and we are still finding the most efficient way to get it all done.

Today we got off to a slow start as we spent some extra time working on the web-site and taking care of accounting. The trip of choice for this afternoon is Cape Point and The Cape of Good Hope. The southern most tip of Africa, as we are taught in school. Don’t believe everything you are taught. Especially when it involves geography and is being taught by an American.

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After photographing animals and landscapes for so long, it was time to add to our collection of Faces of Africa for the book. Today we woke up early and headed to town to meet Sam for a Township Tour. After Soweto, this would be our third venture into the townships since arriving in Africa and we were excited.

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Once again we were off like a heard of turtles this morning. It wasn’t much before noon before the gang was together and we headed east once again. As I eluded to in yesterday’s blog, today is wine day.

The primary wine making land in the Western Cape runs from Constantia, which is ten minutes from our house, all the way to Paarl which is 200 km northeast. In between the major wine making towns are Stellenbosch (also a small University town) and Franshoek, which is more a village than a town.

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With Carl and his mom, Joan in town we got up early and got math behind us so we could join them on a day along the coast. We had been putting off a few things we have wanted to do so that we could do them with Carl. So with a rough plan for the next few days we go to it.

We met up with Carl late morning. The plan was max flex. We would go to the coast and go east. That should be an easy goal to achieve! Off we went, we were in the lead with our awesome silver Opel with Carl in tow. I was a good lead and managed not to force him through any red lights or loose him. (We did loose him once, but that was because I wasn’t driving after too many beers at lunch). More on that later.

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