More South Africa

OK the rest of the world is going to be pretty awesome to compete with South Africa. This place is soooo beautiful!! Since the last update, here's what's happened. We left Cape Town and drove through Simon's Town to the Boulders where a penguin colony lives. South African penguins, who knew?

From there we went to the Cape of Good Hope, the southwestern most point in Africa. It was another beautiful clear day, perfect for being down there. The views were spectacular, and leaving the Cape we ran into some Ostriches (is that the correct plural form??). They were just hanging out on the side of the road and we got great photos (see below).

Then we drove through wine country on the way to Hermanus. We stayed at a great hostel, Hermanus Backpackers. Everyone was really nice and so far every hostel has been affordable enough to get a private room. Hermanus is also a coastal town known to have the world's best land based whale watching. We saw a couple whales, but they were pretty far away. Apparently the day before there were dozens right up close to shore, oh well. From Hermanus we took a day trip to Cape Agulhas, which is the actual southern most point in Africa, where the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans meet. The waves were really high, making the experience of being at the tip of the continent even more exciting. Then we stayed another night in Hermanus to be able to do shark diving today.

SO today we drove to a town called Gansbaai, got on a boat with about 25 other people and went out to open great white shark infested waters. It was awesome. 5 people go down into the cage together and when they yell "down" we go under to see the sharks. We had a few, but 2 that actually brushed up against our cage and gave us the evil eye. Another girl had the shark come up out of the water right next to her head, it was pretty crazy. We saw 7 great whites in all. The best spot to see them was actually from the upper deck of the boat. I never though I would actually do this, but it was a really cool experience.

We met a girl named Lydia at the Hermanus Backpackers and she's been traveling with us the past couple days. Leaving Gansbaai after the sharks, we've landed in a small mountain town called Wilderness. We're staying at the Fairy Knowe Backpackers hostel and it really is in the wilderness. Can't wait to see it tomorrow during daylight. Our room overlooks the nature reserve. We'll spend the day and night here tomorrow and then head into the Addo Elephant reserve on Friday.

We're still not able to upload more than one picture to this blog, and none to picasa. So I've resorted to putting up pics on Facebook. They come up as mobile uploads. I try to "instagram" most of them because it condenses the file and they upload faster (not the fastest Internet here so far). So I hope you all can see them.
Also, I will try to be on skype more, so add me: kellystone83