Cape Town - Weeks 36 - 37

With a flight departing to Zambia in less than 8 hours, I initially thought that I could put together a blog composed solely of pictures, allowing the images of my past few weeks to tell the story. However, after an extremely intense past few days, I decided a little summarization was in order (i.e. a half-assed attempt in putting together a somewhat entertaining blog).

Almost two months after my parents departed from their visit to South Africa, I welcomed two new visitors to Cape Town, Emily Criste and Brett Crandall. In welcoming my two new guests, I also welcomed in three weeks of literal nonstop action, traveling, and anything else in the category of "everything," requested by Brett before his arrival. Although the three weeks are still in progress, this is what "everything" has included thus far:

- Climbing Table Mountain -- Ascending the mountain in near hurricane force winds, we arrived at the summit only to discover that the reliable and efficient cable car had ceased operations only two hours earlier. Thus, after regretfully accepting our fate (and downing our sorrows with a few luke warm Black Labels), we began our descent back down the mountain, spending the majority of our time jumping down from rock to rock in near pitch black dark. Thanks to the reliable South African tourism industry, a permanent limp has officially become part of my walking routine.

- Shark Cage Diving -- For those of you who are unfamiliar with Shark Cage Diving, it is an activity that involves lowering adrenaline filled junkies into a shallow metal cage in the middle of the ocean, and then proceeding to toss "chum" around the cage in hopes of attracting Great White Sharks (chum which of course we were forced to swim in, that was the equivalent of pouring a can of tuna water over our heads... I know, fragrant). I will let the pictures tell the rest of this story.

- Kloofing -- I don't even know where to start with this one. Similar to canyoning, kloofing involves hiking down into a canyon, doing a bit of rappelling/abseiling as well as jumping into pools of water from various heights (5 - 50ft). Typical kloofing companies are well-organized, and have efficient and confident guides who lead the group through the various activities during your day. OUR kloofing company not only instructed us to bring beachwear (i.e. sandals) for a day of intense rock climbing, they also were essentially too afraid to do any of the jumps we were there to do (When an instructor declares "F*ck man, this is too high, I can't do this," it doesn't really create that level of confidence needed for a 50ft jump). Either way, our day was quite entertaining, despite the fact that our veteran guides were almost as clueless as the local baboons who decided to pay us a visit during the end of our trip.

- Other -- Swimming with the penguins, visiting local wineries, treating my guests to an array of South African delicacies, a bit of shopping (aka purchasing almost every set of salad forks in the southern hemisphere), and of course taking enough naps to make a newborn baby jealous.

Well, I leave you for now until my next blog (which hopefully is a bit more well-written than this one): The Southern African Expedition (Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique)

	Enjoying one of our few non-adventure-related moments in Cape Town
	I swear these penguins recognize me by now since I've been to see them so many times
	Debating the overwhelming aromas and underlying flavors of our wine tasting session
	Climbing up Table Mountain in some intense clouds
	Enjoying our well-lit walk down Table Mountain
	On the Shark Cage Diving boat
	One of the great whites swimming by... (this one was about 15 feet long)
	Craziness
	Swimming under a waterfall during our day of Kloofing
	Abseiling