![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/files\/2015\/05\/DSC00004.jpg\")
<\/a> look like November (and the vineyards, long since harvested).\u00a0 Fynbos is the local plant, including the protea which is the national flower.\u00a0 Some were still in bloom, with large and colorful blossoms.<\/p>\nA colony of penguins.\u00a0 I think I sent a picture with me and some of my little friends.\u00a0 The colony moved here in the early 1980s, apparently having run short of the sardines and other fish that constitute diet farther west (tho there are other colonies of penguins here, and we’ll see another one closer to Cape Town).\u00a0 The shrinking supply of food has shrunk the South African A local restaurant.\u00a0 My mom would have called the Oyster Inn in Gordon’s Bay (or as the Afrikaners call it, baai) a “dive,” and my guide was a little apologetic but I thought it gave a nice look at local pubs.\u00a0 The yellowtail was fine, and the malva pudding, a South African dessert, certainly satisfied my sweet tooth.\u00a0 And I didn’t mind the blaring rugby match on the TV, nor the fact that smokers were nearby (that’s the local color).<\/p>\n Today’s treat was a drive through the wine country.\u00a0 As I mentioned, the French Huguenots (Protestants) were welcomed here by the Dutch i We’ll be in Cape till Friday a.m., so I know I’ll have more to say about what seems to be (certainly where we are) a very livable city!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve spent the last two days getting to Cape Town and enjoying the area around this city of nearly 5 million people. The ride from Hermanus here was especially pretty, with the mountains on one side, and the ocean on the other.\u00a0 The highlights? A botanical garden featuring fynbos.\u00a0 Though it’s late fall here, you … Continue reading “Cape Town”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-south-africa-may-2015"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1428"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8511,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1428\/revisions\/8511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a> penguin population from 2 million in 1900 to under\u00a0\u00a0 70,000 breeding pairs today.\u00a0 It helps that people have stopped gathering penguin eggs (1967 it became illegal), and have begun to protect the existing birds.\u00a0 They now live in government housing (so to speak), with fiberglass boroughs to protect them and the babies from predators and the sun.<\/p>\n<\/a>n the 17th century, and brought viniculture to the colony.\u00a0 Those days are still commemorated in some of the towns (the Huguenot museum was unfortunately closed) in the names of the vineyards (La Provence and Normandie and Marianne were three I remember, but there are hundreds of them in the area).\u00a0 This was about an 8 hour tour featuring 13 samples of wines; interestingly, there is a port equivalent, but that’s a Portuguese trademark, and a sparkling wine that in\u00a0 France would be champagne, etc., but not here.\u00a0 My favorite city that we went through was Stellenbosch, an old Dutch settlement with whitewashed Cape Dutch architecture.\u00a0 We’ll be going back there to visit the University, so I hope I’ll have a chance for a closer look at the architecture, which included a 1770 arsenal.<\/p>\n<\/a>Although South Africa is, ironically, the home of SAB, the second largest brewer in the world (owners of Millers), wines are big business too.\u00a0 I read somewhere it’s a 4 billion rand business (divide by 11 for dollars), and you know it’s big business when 1) Richard Branson of Virgin fame recently bought a vineyard and 2) a Chinese investment group did the same. My guide, Krystelle, was excellent in her knowledge and in introducing me to the culture of the Boers.\u00a0 Her family was one of the early settlers.\u00a0 Her expertise was wine.\u00a0 When I came to South Africa with Carolyn, I made sure we had Krystelle as our guide.<\/p>\n