Visitors

This past Sunday, my mother and grandmother (aka ‘Bucca’) came to visit me here in Cape Town. My mom received a proper greeting by being pooped on by a South African pigeon, which is indeed good luck, seeing as Bucca’s lost suitcase safely arrived at the hotel later on that evening.

We began our excursions on Monday with a tour of the Robben Island prison where, in addition to getting a great historical lesson, Bucca and mom learned a lesson in South African bus etiquette; regardless of how full a bus might be, there is always room for another body (they still haven’t seen the half of it).

The following day, we awoke early for a tour of my house in Observatory before proceeding onto Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. It was here that we began the Skeleton Gorge trail, which leads up Table Mountain…and two minutes later, we had already stopped for our first water break (which we continued to do every 20 steps or so).  After hours of hiking, we finally caught sight of the top of the mountain. Sadly, me being the airhead I am, I somehow lost the trail path and despite having climbed up rocks, waterfalls and ladders for nearly 2 hours, we were forced to turn around just shy of the peak of the mountain. Whoops…

Our next adventure took place on Wednesday with a 4:45 am pick up time for a shark cage diving adventure in Hermanus, South Africa. Despite my attempts to convince her otherwise, Bucca was the self-appointed sidelined photographer while my mother and I struggled into our wetsuits in preparation for the dive. After nearly 30mins of diving, mom had quite the adrenaline rush when a 16 foot shark, in attempt to eat a fish which happened to be floating in front of her face, swam full speed directly into the cage, jaws wide open and all. And those teeth are just as big as they are in the movies, FYI. Needless to say, that was the end of our diving for the day. (I would also like to note Bucca’s fascination with seaweed. However, her actual remark while referring to the seaweed was “Wow, look at all those birds! What kind of birds are those, do you suppose?”)

As if I hadn’t tired them out enough already, the three of us spent the morning at the Lotus Park cresh (preschool). With 120 children squeezed into a classroom comprised of 2 train cars, it was beyond hectic to say the least. But Bucca did manage to learn some great new dance moves from the 3-year-old girls, which I am sure will be making a debut in Minocqua this year.

Despite having done so much already, mom and Bucca still have 5 days left in Cape Town. Hopefully we have all the bird accidents and shark attacks out of the way.