Monkeys, Birds and Buses

Now that we're no longer sleep deprived, and have our bags, we can really start to enjoy Cape Town.  Almost everything here was closed yesterday on Sunday. but Monday brought about Cape Town in all it's promise.

We started by breakfasting at Lola's, a cute little breakfast and lunch spot right up the street. Most notable: I had this amazing Corn Fritter dish with pesto and avocado, and Bryce got a french toast croissant.  Everyone was really happy with their breakfast.

My Corn Fritter from Lola's

Next, we met some of our traveling companions for the first time. Mark, Cindi and Arwyn have moved around from San Miguel, to France, to Orlando.  Arwyn is almost 10, and hit it off with Laurel instantly. Bryce fit right in, and all the parents clicked right away.  We did a hop-on hop-off bus tour of Cape Town.  The tour took us through the city, and then up into the surrounding mountains where we stopped at World of Birds and Monkey Jungle. Laurel is a bird lover, and both kids like animals, we figured it would be a cool stop for them.

World of Birds is a bird sanctuary, which has evolved into a labyrinth of 100 aviaries, with all kinds of exotic birds from all over the world.  In particular, Laurel loves owls, and they had several varieties of them.  We were sometimes just two feet away from them, all of us inside the same aviary cage. The owls, and other birds, were really spectacular.

Colorful birds

Laurel up close with her favorite creature

Sue snapped this great photo

The other cool part of this place was Monkey Jungle.  This is an area that lets you go into an enclosure with about 30 squirrel monkeys, and they climb all over you.  Bryce seemed to be a magnet for the monkeys.

Bryce's Monkey Friends

After a couple of hours with the birds and monkeys, we hopped back on the bus and visited Hout Bay for a late lunch/snack.  Once we arrived, we saw an old fisherman with a sea lion on the pier. Bryce was complaining of being tired, but once he saw this he ran over and forgot about his fatigue.

The fisherman had some bait fish he was feeding to the sea lion, and he let the kids do some feeding as well. Arwyn even enticed the sea lion into a fishy "kiss".

Kissing a sea lion

After a snack, we got back on the bus and headed home.  Ann called us to meet up with her family and the Machetts, and agreed to come to the Africa Cafe, an authentic African dining place.  It was perfect for our group, as we were now 16 people.  The menu was a tasting of 12 different only-in-Africa dishes, including some curried beef, sesame balls, an excellent Lentil soup, and other dishes.  It was all delicious, and tasted really healthy.  If was great to reunite with our old friends.