Currently we are sitting outside at a cafe near our hotel, killing time before heading to back to the aquarium. We went to the aquarium yesterday because it was one of the very few things open on Christmas. We caught a penguin feeding and a shark feeding...sort of.
The penguins eagerly ate the fish tossed at them. Penguins look a little less cute and cuddly when they've splashed fish blood and guts on their chest.
The sharks are in the Predator Tank. The Predator Tank also is home to some large turtles, some huge fish I can't remember the name of, some rays, and a billion little fish. It's a big tank.
Two divers, dressed in a santa suit and an elf suit, descended in to the tank with boxes full of fish. They have to hand-feed the turtles because the turtles are too slow to naturally compete for food with the lightning-quick fish in the tank, and they need to hand-feed the the sharks to ensure the sharks know that they get their food from people and not by eating every other fish in the tank.
After gently tossing pieces of fish into the chomping mouths of the turtles, the divers tried to feed the sharks by shoving fish pierced on Titan-esque pitchforks into the sharks' mouth. The sharks weren't having it. Apparently they weren't hungry for their weekly feeding. The aquarium employee doing the presentation for the feeding apologized. There's nothing we can do, he said. I know you all came to see the sharks eat but if they don't eat they don't eat. Maybe they'll eat on Wednesday since they didn't eat today, so come back then. Oh but if you're a certified scuba diver, you can dive in the tank with the sharks if you want. See Guest Services.
Pretty much everything else in the city is closed today, we had no plans, and I don't think I use all of my fingers regularly anyway, so this afternoon I am diving in the Predator Tank. I will report on that later.
Table Mountain towers over Cape Town. It was recently voted onto the latest edition of the Natural Seven Wonders of the World list (or it made the final cut or it's being considered or something like that). They have signs all over the place urging people to vote. Anyway, it's a big mountain. Its flat top is about a kilometer above sea level. It's shaped like a table because when it was formed the rock rose straight up from the earth, as opposed to most mountains which splinter and spike and, well, look more like mountains.
On Friday I hiked up Table Mountain with four other people: two attorneys from LA (I traveled thousands of miles to hike a mountain with four people and half of them are attorneys? How far do I need to go to get away??) and two French girls. Our guide was a small Irish woman named Margaret. Margaret has been hiking Table Mountain every day for about 15 years. She is not to be messed with.
I asked her how she ended up a mountain climber. What does one do in a previous life that leads to climbing this mountain every day?
She tells me she was a speech therapist. Natural career progression, speech therapist to mountain climber.
Anyway, Margaret lead me, the two attorneys, and the French girls up and down the mountain in a little over 6 hours. (Pictures will come along later with the rest.) When we got to the top to the cableway station, where people who have taken the cable car are deposited, we found ourselves more or less alone on an empty mountain. The cableway had closed due to the wind so the only other people around were a few who had also hiked up. It was nice with no crowds.
I think I've found a new hobby. I hiked Masada in Israel and enjoyed that though it was a far different hike than Table Mountain. Masada was simply a dirt trail. Table Mountain was climbing over rocks and up ladders and jumping puddles. I'm going to check out the Appalachian and Shenandoah hiking scene when I get back. Maybe my thighs will have completely recovered by then.
Time to go meet the predators. And teach Mom how to use the camera.
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