Daily Photo

This photo (of surfers waiting until the tide was just right to swim out to the waves) was taken at Cape St. Francis on Saturday.

Daily Photo

Cape St. Francis (located 100 km from Port Elizabeth) is a coastal resort town, often referred to as "Little Venice" because of the canals that run through it.  The exclusive town consists of white-walled, thatch-roofed houses, and it was developed about 25 years ago by Leighton and Ann Hulett.  

Daily Photo

I took this photo of the Seal Point Lighthouse, located in Cape St. Francis, on Saturday. The lighthouse was installed in 1878, and its engineers included Joseph Flack, a man who was involved in construction on Robben Island. (After he died in 1876, W.B. Hayes took over.)  The small town of Cape St. Francis is known for its beaches and surfing, as well as the Penguin Rescue and Rehabilitation Center and Seal Point Lighthouse.

Daily Photo

Today I ventured out to find the Main Library in Port Elizabeth.  It's located on the Market Square, in an area of town that is being renovated for good reason; the Main Library was erected in 1902, after its terra cotta façade was manufactured in England and shipped to Algoa bay in pieces.

Unfortunately, it has been closed since April 14 for maintenance and restoration.  This is being done, in part, to address the damage caused by flooding which occurs whenever there are heavy rains.  

A vacation from a vacation

I took 592 photos on our Cape Town tour.

Most of them were landscape photos; it seemed like every time I turned my head in our huge silver van we were entering a new terrain.  Yet I still couldn't capture the beauty of all that we saw, or the memories that were made with those 592 pictures.

I viewed the Cape of Good Hope, where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet.

I got to see Nelson Mandela's jail cell on Robben Island.

I toured a Holocaust museum in Cape Town that paid tribute to those who lost their lives during Apartheid and the Holocaust.

I saw, in bewilderment, the 2nd largest township in the country, and I tried to capture its essence against the beauty of Table Mountain.

I climbed Table Mountain and celebrated with friends at the top as we joked about how we were told we'd be doing a "leisure walk" that day.

I saw, with delight, penguins and and rock dassies and ostriches and baboons.

I tasted wines in the vineyards of Stellenbosch and learned about different flavors that hit the nose and palate.

I stayed at four different backpackers, and I thought about how much fun it would be to open a backpacker some day.

And I thought about how I still have two more months of this.