Penguins in Cape Town

African Penguins

I’m writing this as I fly over natural gas fires in Saudi Arabia.  They are a bright contrast to the darkness and dimly lit cities below.  They also represent another foreign world to me. 

I should be in Istanbul right now, but thanks to the lovely Turkish Airlines I’m 13 hours later than planned.  Bummer because it took away half a day of my short time in Istanbul.  But much to my amusement the angry Arabs and Irish on the flight provided excellent people watching with their yelling and ranting.

Cape Town from Table Mountain

Turkish Airlines did put us up in a fancy hotel for a few hours though.  But the time sitting around in the airport and transport to and from the hotel was more than double the time actually spent in the hotel.  I did get to see the bill (footed by Turkish Airlines) from my few hours in this hotel and it was a bit more than the cost of this flight.

Top of Table Mountain

I left Cape Town a few days ago with having completed my goal of playing tourist by hiking up Table Mountain and seeing the penguins.  With such a short time in some of these places on these trips I feel like the best way to see is unfortunately to be your typical tourist.  But Cape Town was great.  I would love to go back and send much more time there.  If you combined the skinny jeans and hipsters of Portland, OR and the money and beaches in San Diego and the breweries and good food and diversity of both you would get something akin to Cape Town, South Africa.

I'm finally posting this from Istanbul, where my luggage was finally delivered.  How do you delay a plane for 13 hours and not put a single piece of luggage on it?

Ostrich Foot