A Year Ago...

It was just a year ago that we left for our trip to South Africa, and I have been looking through my pictures, and decided to post a few. First is one for fabric people: this is a booth in the Greenmarket Square in Capetown selling mud cloth. This isn't a South Africa cloth, but comes from other countries, including Uganda and the Congo. It's all natural dyes and the designs are appliqued on to the base. I bought only a small pillow cover from this because of the bulk. Then--since everyone posts pictures of their cats--here's a cat of another kind. We visited a cheetah breeding facility (cheetahs are endangered, which I didn't know), and for a fee you could pet a cheetah. Pretty hokey, and actually I was rather afraid to do this, but my husband talked me into it, so here I am, gingerly petting that cat! He was actually quite bored by the whole thing, a typical cat. I could even hear him purring.







This is Table Mountain, in the heart of Capetown, taken from Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens on the inland side. The next picture is a view of Capetown taken from the boat returning from Robben Island, a former prison during the Apartheid period. It is now a museum, and tours are conducted by former prisoners, who describe their experiences. An incredible experience to take this tour and consider the almost miraculous changes that have happened so rapidly there. And to give a taste of the less scenic side of Capetown, here is one of the "informal settlements" put up by the people who are flooding into the city from the countryside, a growing problem for South Africa.

I tried to give some hint of the varied things we saw. We did see wild animals too, but my camera just wasn't able to do them justice.