The Cape Bulbul

Khayelitsha

2009-07-16T13:38:00.000-07:00

My friend Kristen and I spent the night in Khayelitsha, the largest township in Cape Town. The place is home to around 1.5 million people, about a quarter of the population of the city. Most white South Africans have never been there.

Townships are colorful places, full of hand-painted signs and murals.

Melissa

Joe Slovo

2009-07-15T13:33:00.000-07:00

We visited the Joe Slovo informal settlement. Below are the inside and outside of one of the shacks. No matter how long I spend in South Africa, I don't really get used to seeing these places.

Melissa

Guga S'Thebe

2009-07-14T13:19:00.000-07:00

The Guga S'Thebe community center in Langa provides various services such as computer classes and job counseling to residents of the township. Cool murals, too.

At the community center, local people learn to make and paint ceramic dishes. The center is also a venue for local craftspeople to sell work to tourists.

Melissa

Langa Township

2009-07-13T12:23:00.000-07:00

Amber and Jeff and I took a tour of Langa township. Langa was a township created for black South Africans during apartheid, and the area is still almost entirely black today.

The townships are generally poor areas, so it was interesting to see a section of relatively upscale homes within Langa. The apartheid government built these houses close to the freeway because they hoped passing foreigners would think all black people lived in nice places.

It's common to see shops in shipping containers on the sidewalk. This shop sells telephone minutes.

They were selling chickens on the sidewalk, too.

Melissa

Hippo Print

2009-06-28T13:28:00.000-07:00

We were out birding at a wetlands nature reserve here in Cape Town and saw some hippopotamus tracks. Pretty cool. I haven't seen a live one yet but I'll be looking for them when we're in Kruger next month. My hand is for scale.
-Andy

Color Pictures

2009-06-21T11:41:00.000-07:00

For a while now I've been taking what I call color pictures. Here are my favorites so far. They lose quite a bit by being scrunched down on the blog. Clicking on them will get a full-size image.

Fynbos hillside near Betty's Bay

Succulent plant in Namaqualand

Rocks and grass near Augrabies Falls

Tanniny water and rocks near Betty's Bay

Native forest in Marloth Nature Reserve

Water and foam in Marloth Nature Reserve

-Andy

Penguin Posse

2009-06-08T12:53:00.000-07:00

Far from Home

2009-06-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

Don't worry, they made it back safely. You will too, if you come and visit us.

Melissa

Robben Island

2009-06-06T11:28:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, our friends Amber and Jeff came to visit with their son Benedict. One of our outings was a trip to Robben Island Prison, where political prisoners were housed during apartheid.

We saw the lime quarry where the prisoners were forced to spend their days digging lime by hand. When they could, they gathered into groups, and the older prisoners taught the younger ones about South African history, economics, and the history of the freedom struggle. Partly because of this, Robben Island was sometimes called The University.

We also saw Nelson Mandela's cell and the place in the exercise yard where he buried his autobiography in order to hide it from the guards. It was found and destroyed, but the prisoners had already smuggled another copy out of the prison, so it didn't get lost.

The boat trip to and from the island was lovely, although it was very touristy. We had a great view of Table Mountain from the bay.

We also saw whales, even though they were out of season. I know readers of this blog (if I have any readers left after so many months with no posts) are fond of my fuzzy shots of whale tails, so here's another one:

Sorry about the long gap between posts. I'll try to be better. I think Andy is planning a post or two, too.

Melissa

Cricket!

2009-03-19T10:36:00.000-07:00

We went to our first-ever cricket match. By the end of it, we were fans. It was the national final match, so there was a great deal of pomp: dancing girls, guys dressed up in silly suits. The referrees were delivered to the field in a helicopter. They do the wave here, and they call it the Mexican wave.

Melissa

The Obligatory Diminishing Road Shot

2009-03-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

Porcupine Quill

2009-03-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

They Feel Edible

2009-03-14T09:08:00.000-07:00

To the touch, this plant feels like fruit leather.

This one feels like a red rope.

Melissa

Monkey Wars

2009-03-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

There was an ongoing battle between people and monkeys at the Augrabies Falls campground, and the monkeys were winning. I think this was because the monkeys wanted one thing from the people: food. The people, meanwhile, wanted a bunch of different things from the monkeys, often all at the same time.

Some people (like me) wanted to take pictures of the monkeys playing on tents and cars.

Some people wanted to chase them off. (In between throwing sticks, these people kept shouting, "Stop pooping on my tent!")

Some people wanted to feed the monkeys.

And a few fools wanted to get them drunk. (It didn't work. They spilled all the wine.)

As confusing as human behavior must seem to the monkeys, it's clear that they're willing to put up with us. They came to visit us for breakfast and dinner, whether we invited them or not.

Melissa

Cute Little Thieves

2009-02-05T09:27:00.000-08:00

When I was in college, I read that vervet monkeys have three different alarm calls to warn each other of eagles, snakes, and leopards. Now that I know these animals well, I can say for certain that everything else in their communicative arsenal means, roughly, "You go over there and do something adorable while I sneak up behind the people and grab that bag of nuts."

This monkey might look like it's just hanging out on a post. But I was cooking dinner when I took this picture, and oddly enough, the monkey was one post closer to me every time I turned around.

Eating leaves? Uh-uh. This one has an eye on my bread.

I'm afraid my bread didn't survive its attentions.

It wasn't a fair contest. There were about two dozen of them and only one of me.

Melissa

Sociable Weavers

2009-01-28T09:00:00.000-08:00

Sociable weaver nests can weigh up to a ton and last 100 years. The individual birds don't live that long, but their colonies can. As the weavers keep building, the weight of these nests can eventually fell a tree.

The nests provide better shade than trees (or, in this case, power poles), so animals such as wildebeests often hang out beneath them. These visitors, along with the weavers themselves, contribute organic matter to the soil. As a result, young desert plants often thrive underneath the nests.

This little guy apparently doesn't think his nest is big enough yet.

Melissa

Dassie Trail

2009-01-18T00:00:00.000-08:00

We took a hike on a trail called the Dassie Trail, a nice little desert stroll with a few challenging moments.

Our destination was the Moon Rock, which you can see against the horizon on the righthand side of the photo below.

When we came across a safety sign in the middle of nowhere, Andy just happened to disobey it. (If you can't read the sign, it says, "Potholes may be hidden by plants. Don't step on the old, dead reeds.")

These klipspringer stood completely still for several minutes as we approached them, and then they bounced away. These were the first we saw, but not the last. Their habit of standing watch on top of big rocks made them some of the easiest wildlife to spot in the park.

For the benefit of all the geologists in the family, we snapped some pictures of neat rocks.

And then we climbed the Moon Rock. From the top, the view stretched pretty much forever.

On the way back to camp, we had to go wading a bit.

Incidentally, I got the car stuck on this exact spot a day later. If Andy hadn't done a Hercules and picked up the back end, we might never have made it home.

Melissa

Augrabies Falls

2009-01-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

The word "Augrabies" comes a from a Khoi phrase meaning "Place of great noise." The khoi used to avoid the waterfall because they believed it was the home of a monster.

On our first full day in the park, Andy and I wandered around the falls, admiring the views and the neat potholes in the rocks.

When we stopped for lunch, Andy invented a new food: hard-boiled eggs wrapped in slices of ham. Very tasty.

Dozens of lizards ran around us while we were eating lunch. I think they were after our crumbs. They were not shy at all. One of them ran up on my shoe.

Melissa

Rock Dassie

2009-01-12T00:00:00.000-08:00

These things look like rodents, but they're actually related to elephants.

Melissa

Mongoose

2009-01-10T23:53:00.000-08:00

At the Augrabies falls campground, these guys checked out the empty braai pits almost every morning.

Melissa

The Drive to Augrabies

2009-01-10T10:58:00.000-08:00

On the second day of our trip, we drove up to Augrabies National Park. On the way, we stopped in the town of Calvinia. Not for the first time, I was glad I'd given up being a vegetarian before coming to South Africa. We bought some tasty lamb chops and sausages at this braai (barbecue) place.

We also went into the town's museum, which is the building behind the train engine in this photo. It had nice displays about the San, who were the earliest known inhabitants of this region; the Boer settlers who moved in later; and the sheep farming that supports the region today. It also had a whole room dedicated to a set of quadruplets who were born in the town some time ago.

Back on the road, we passed a forest of aloe trees, which are called quiver trees because the San used to hollow out the branches and use them as quivers for their arrows.

We also stopped at this farmstall/junk shop/souvenier shop/cafe:

In spite of all the stopping, we did manage to reach our destination. We caught our first glimpse of Augrabies Falls, the sixth largest waterfall in the world, just as it was getting dark. We didn't have time to hang around and take many pictures that night, though, because we had to go set up camp. I'll post the next day's pictures of the area soon.

Melissa

You Know You're a Tourist When....

2009-01-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

...you stop the car, get out, and take pictures of the bug that lands on your windshield.

Melissa

Road Trip

2009-01-04T08:27:00.000-08:00

We took a road trip up to Augrabies Falls National Park, which is in the northwestern part of South Africa, on the border of Namibia. The morning we left, Andy pulled this message out of a Christmas cracker:

This seemed like a good omen. We set out, and soon we saw some spectacular views of farms, pastures, and mountains.

We stayed the first night in a small town called Neuwoudtville. It's a tourist attraction during flower season, but there wasn't much going on at this time. People were out in the streets, but none of them seemed to be going anywhere. The unemployment rate in South Africa is about 25% overall, but we think it might be higher here.

Melissa

Regarding Christmas

2008-12-26T08:00:00.000-08:00

Just so you know, we weren't the only people in South Africa who thought of going to the beach on Christmas Day.

(Oh, and that whitish stuff on the ground is sand, not snow.)

Melissa

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T12:24:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to all of our friends and family, especially those in the northern hemisphere.

Melissa and Andy

Spoonbill

2008-12-24T01:15:00.000-08:00

Melissa

Soccer

2008-12-11T01:26:00.001-08:00

They're building a new soccer stadium in Cape Town, for the 2010 World Cup. This photo shows it from the top of Table Mountain.

Melissa

Up Skeleton Gorge

2008-12-03T09:52:00.000-08:00

We've hiked around on Table Mountain's slopes many times, and we took the cable car up once. Recently we finally climbed all the way up on our own two feet. We went up Skeleton Gorge, which some people say is their favorite route.

The hike started out steep, with a couple of fun spots where we had to climb ladders and scramble up rocks.

At the end of that first leg, we took a quick detour to check out a reservoir. On the way, we saw a sand dune, which seemed like an odd thing to find on top of a mountain.

After that, we wended our way more slowly upward and then across the table. On the way, we passed this cool castle-shaped rock.

At the top, the views were far clearer than they were the time we went up by cable car.

This rock climber preened a bit when he saw me taking his picture. Little did he know that I just wanted him to offset the view of Lion's Head, which is the big hill, and Robben Island, which used to be the site of a prison. Nelson Mandela spent a couple of decades locked up there.

Melissa

My Nomination for Best Tree Name Ever

2008-11-25T11:19:00.000-08:00

The monkey puzzle tree.

Melissa

Cape Wildlife etc.

2008-11-24T10:08:00.000-08:00

A lizard with a blue head!

An ostrich with three well-camoflauged babies!

A dead puff adder!

Melissa

Cape Point Beach Hike

2008-11-22T09:08:00.000-08:00

The morning after we stayed in Simon's Town, we still had to spend a few hours away from home. We drove to the Cape Point and went for a hike.

These flowers were blooming all along the trail. The petals felt completely dry, and when the wind blew through them, they made a sound like rustling tissue paper.

We thought maybe this whale bone was a skull, but we weren't sure.

Here's part of the reason why the Cape of Good Hope was originally called the Cape of Storms:

And you're not tired of ocean vistas yet, are you?

Melissa

Spontaneous Free Vacation

2008-11-21T08:28:00.000-08:00

Recently our landlords had to kick us out of our place for a night to avoid killing us with insecticide fumes. They fixed it so we could stay in a house one of their relatives owns in Simon's Town, which is a little vacation spot about 45 minutes away from Cape Town. The place was beautiful:

So was the view:

This neat toy was there:

Melissa

Bay Leaves

2008-11-20T09:31:00.000-08:00

I don't think I ever saw bay leaves on an actual tree before I came to South Africa. Here we have a bay tree in our yard. We can pick and dry the leaves and put them in soup.

Melissa

More Spring Flowers

2008-11-19T09:23:00.000-08:00

Don't Worry, Mom!

2008-11-17T08:38:00.000-08:00

The following weapons are not allowed in the walkway that leads under the railroad tracks by our house:

Clockwise from top left: machine gun, axe, assegai and knobkerrie, machete.

Melissa

Nest Building

2008-11-16T08:22:00.000-08:00

On a trip a while back, we had a chance to watch some Cape Weavers building nests. They weave them so that the entrance hole ends up on the bottom.

Melissa

Groceries

2008-11-15T07:15:00.001-08:00

People often ask me what the grocery stores are like in South Africa. They're pretty similar to the stores in the states, except that they tend to be more crowded. Our favorite store is the Fruit and Veg Market. They sell tons of produce, as well as most other foods:

Another store we shop at often, the Pick n' Pay, carries less produce and more dry goods and meats.

I'm sorry I've left such a long gap since my last post. I've built up quite a backlog of pictures, so I'm hoping to post quite a bit over the next few weeks. I hope you'll keep checking.

If anyone has general questions about South Africa (like the question about the grocery stores) send me an e-mail or ask them in the comments. I'll answer them if I can.

Melissa

Flower Season

2008-09-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

It's spring here, wildflower season.

Melissa

Hide

2008-08-29T11:39:00.000-07:00

We spent a day at South Africa's West Coast National Park, where there are a couple of bird hides that allowed us to sit and watch the tide come in. The tide pushed the birds toward us, so we got a good look at some shy shorebirds.

For most of the day, our view looked like this:

And this:

And this:

Melissa

Cape Agulhas

2008-08-27T12:28:00.000-07:00

We drove to the southernmost tip of Africa, Cape Agulhas. As far as either of us could remember, we had never been to the furthest extremity of any contintent before. I particularly liked the little signs on the bottom of the marker. They helpfully pointed east to the Indian Ocean and west to the Atlantic.

We couldn't help but notice that there were at least twenty or thirty feet of land south of the marker, so we climbed out onto the rocks and stuck our hands in the Indian-Atlantic water.

After that, we climbed to the top of the Agulhas Lighthouse. Evidently "agulhas" means "needles," and Cape Agulhas got its name because the compass needles don't work well in the area. It's the site of many shipwrecks.

This is the lens of the lighthouse. Andy says it's called a Fresnel Lens.

And this is the lighthouse's shadow.

Melissa

Attempted Wildlife Photography

2008-08-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

The wildlife at De Hoop was spectacular. I'm afraid that my photogrophy skills weren't quite up to the challenge, so you'll have to rely on the narration in this post.

We saw an ostrich poking around in the grass, with a little cattle egret chasing it around and presumably eating the bugs near its feet. The ostrich is, fuzzily, kind of in the middle of this picture.
Herds of eland and bontebok were grazing all over the park. Unfortunately, my pictures of them are kind of hard to appreciate:

Best of all, we saw about a dozen southern right whales. They were floating right off the coast. Periodically, one of them would start breaching. I've wanted to see whales breaching almost as long as I can remember, so I was thrilled.

I wanted to share that experience on this blog, but my camera always delays for a second or two before snapping a picture, which makes it a bit hard to catch gigantic sea mammals suspended above the water. So, just to prove that I really, really tried, I'm posting all the pictures I took right after whales breached, or right when I thought one was about to breach. If you look closely, you might see a fin.

I did manage to take two photos of animals that are actually recognizable. The first is of some blue cranes, which are South Africa's national bird:

The second is of a Cape francolin that wanted to eat our lunch for us. Up close,
these birds make litte beeping noises. They sound like robots in 1980s sci-fi movies.

Melissa

De Hoop Views

2008-08-09T11:48:00.001-07:00

Melissa

De Hoop Nature Reserve

2008-08-09T11:35:00.001-07:00

We took a trip to De Hoop Nature Reserve. South Africans pronounce the name of this park in two different ways: duh-HOO-ihp or duh-WIHP. We stayed on a beautiful farm outside the park.

The apartment they gave us was so nice that we first thought we might be in the wrong place.

But then we saw what they had on the shelf,

and we knew we were home (for the next three days anyway).

Melissa

The Whale Tale

2008-07-20T10:05:00.000-07:00

About a week ago we went for a drive along the coast to look for whales. We saw a bunch of gorgeous views, as usual.

We found some beach treasures.

We drove past a baboon.

Oh, and we bought ourselves a plate of roast duck.

But most importantly, we saw a southern right whale. It was kind of far away, but if you squint, you can sort of see its tail on the bottom right in this photo.

Here's a bigger version.

Melissa

Van Riebeek's Hedge

2008-07-13T01:52:00.000-07:00

This is a segment of a wild almond hedge that was planted in 1660 by Jan van Riebeek. Van Riebeek, the first leader of the Dutch East India Company's settlment on the site of present-day Cape Town, hoped that the hedge would prevent the local San and Khoikhoi people from coming in and attacking the European settlers. I doubt it worked. It didn't prevent the settlers from moving further inland to attack the Africans, either.

This post is dedicated to Sommer Browning, who asked me to post more history of the Dutch East India Company.

Melissa

Proteas

2008-07-12T11:27:00.000-07:00

Before we moved to Cape Town, I had never seen protea flowers. Here they're everywhere. Apparently most of the flowers in the Protea genus can be found in the Cape Floral Kingdom, and a few others are scattered around the southern hemisphere. It's the middle of winter here, so it's not peak season by any means, but we saw all of the flowers below in an afternoon walk today.

The first three pictures in this series are from the same plant. I think they're three stages of development of the same flower.

Melissa

Now You See It...

2008-07-06T06:16:00.001-07:00

This little guy likes to hang out in our front yard. He's pretty hard to find because he mimics the color of the flowers on his favorite bush. He didn't seem to enjoy being photographed.

Melissa

A New Vegetable

2008-06-26T06:39:00.001-07:00

We recently discovered a new food called "waterblommetjie", which means "water flowers" and is pronounced roughly VAHT-er-BLUM-ik-kee. They grow wild in fresh water on the Cape penninsula. These waterblommetjie fell into a pot of soup shortly after this picture was taken.

Melissa

In Good Company

2008-06-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

This garden has been a garden since 1652, when employess of the Dutch East India Company planted it to help resupply passing ships. It is still known as the Company's Gardens.

This is the biggest aloe tree we've seen yet.

Melissa

Up the Table

2008-06-01T09:52:00.000-07:00

It was a clear day in Cape Town.

But it was cloudy on top of Table Mountain.

Which is where we went.

From the top, we could still see the city. Sort of.

The landscape was beautiful.

The plants were strange.

The cliffs were invisible.

The sun was occasional.

Melissa and Andy

Aloes & Stuff

2008-05-31T13:28:00.000-07:00

Aloes and iceplants are native to this area and have been imported to the US for landscaping, erosion control, and whatnot. Here you can see them as part of an ecosystem (though not in this picure where they are definitely landscaping on the grounds of the cape point light house) and you often see a little iceplant between some shrubs or a dense stand of aloe just like you'd see a patch of prickley-pear in the hills outside Tucson. I catch myself thinking I'm walking in a garden when in fact I'm in a wilderness.

Andy

Penguin Tracks

2008-05-26T11:44:00.001-07:00

The penguins leave scrapey claw, wing, and tail tracks in the sand. The shoes are for scale.

Andy

The Cape Point

2008-05-25T07:05:00.000-07:00

Andy does the penguin walk at Boulders Beach.

The horizon beyond the Cape of Good Hope is not actually slanted. Next time we drive down there, I'll try to hold the camera straight.

Melissa

Jackass Penguins, Mom!

2008-05-24T12:56:00.000-07:00

A jackass penguin, unfortunately renamed as an African penguin. Long live the ouzel!

The penguins were on a white sugar beach. Really warm. Not what you'd expect from a penguin breeding colony. We plan to return next summer to snorkel with them.

Andy and Melissa

Hello, Aloe

2008-05-14T13:34:00.000-07:00

This tree aloe is just inside the entrance of the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. We were members before we had an apartment, a car, a phone, or a bag of rice.

Melissa and Andy