Animals and Humen

First some technical details: We took a car from Cape Town for 7 days and traveled the southern coast of South Africa, this area includes the Overberg, the Garden Route and the Winelands. We returned the car at Cape Town and took a 20 hours bus (which took almost 24 hours of course) to Windhoek, where we are now.

So it all started with great white sharks diving. Yes, you read correctly. They put you in a cage (you not the sharks) and lower you into shark infested water in the ocean. They then throw baits at the sharks to get them really near and excited. They are AMAZING animals and it was an incredible experience!!

We then went into a sanctuary for birds and one for monkeys that were both amazing, but they were beaten by Tenikwa where we went into a cage with a Cheetah!! What a beautiful creature, they were actually purring at us! Just like a house cat but much louder! One of the most magnificent animals there was the leopard. It is much more massive, and with leopards you cannot go into the cage, even if they grew with humans. He was just beyond the metal fence, when the guide realized how he was eyeing the little boy that was with us. It was a very intense moment, the leopard will not take his eyes off that boy and the guide said we must move on now, or the leopard will try to get the boy through the fence!

We stopped to sleep in a farm on top of a mountain, they had 8 orange cats, two dogs, a few horses and lots of chickens. I have to say, I haven't met many chickens in my life but these chickens were hilarious!! They followed me everywhere, even into the chicken making a lot of noise and looking confused and confident at the same time.

The next day we were doing a half day hiking trail in Nature's valley, at some point we have reached a beautiful lagune, completely empty that can only be accessed by foot or by boat. While we were walking on the beach, we startled a penguin. He was along on the beach and as he was trying to get away we realize he was injured, he could barely walk. We remembered that Tanikwa is also a penguins rehabilitation center
(where they heal them and send them back), and we had our phone with us. So we called them and gave them our location. We had to move on, and as we were walking away we saw him standing on the beach, looking out to sea. We didn't know if the rescue team will be able to find him and it broke our hearts. The next day however we called Tanikwa and were informed they found him and that he is recovering in their hospital! It made us very happy to know he was safe.

The last part of the story is us driving back into Cape Town. From the highway we could see those awful sheds people live in again. And it went on for miles and miles. Small, made of scraps, some with electricity wires going in some without. Some children playing on the dirt near the highway. It made us feel extremely sad. It looked like this is the forgotten backdoor of the world.