Thursday, January 1, 2009

Happy New Years 2009

We were in Cape Town, South Africa for 16 days celebrating Christmas and the new year! Fireworks over the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, this is where we celebrated the arrival of the new year, 2009. This looks like wine, but it actually sparkling grape juice! Delicious & Nutritious! We bought it directly from the winery as we were traveling east from Cape Town about 3 hours to Montagu where we met up with our friends Chris and Lauren to go rock climbing. When we walked into the winery and asked for the product, the man at the counter said "You mean the unfermented kind?" And then poured himself and us a huge glass to sample. We had an excellent view from atop Table Mountain after a 2 hour (almost vertical) hike with our friends Phillip, Tarryn, Flavio, Allison, and Garry. We indulged ourselves with delicious food, including amazing Haagen Daz ice cream (not available in Nigeria). A view of Signal Hill and Lions Head from our helicopter flight on New Years Day. The Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in Cape Town.I ran an 8 km race in 47.5 minutes around this light house and the Sea Point parks on New Years Eve. Afterthe race there were drawing prized and I won a 150 rand (about $15 USD) to a local grocery market, Pick n' Pay. We went to the cango Wildlife Ranch in Ooudtshorn and had the opportunity to pet two adult and two baby cheetahs, and one 10 month old tiger! It was thrilling and a nice chance to support the preservation of these beautiful felines. These are two lions feeding on the torso of a donkey. They did not allow us to get into the cage with these beasts, can you imagine? No thanks. Our friends, Chris and Lauren, playing on a slack line in the campground. This is a picture of BEBO for my nephew, Zakary, and niece, Ashlynn. We took this at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town, where there are beautiful displays of many aquatic animals from both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.