Boulders Beach

            Today was my last day in South Africa, so I decided to try for a second time to get to Boulders Beach to see penguins.  Liz O, her roommate Caitlin, and another girl Amanda were planning to go and said I could join them.  We left the ship at 8AM and took a taxi to the train station.  We bought roundtrip tickets for 25 rand (which is maybe $3) and boarded the train.  We were supposed to take the first class car, but somehow we didn’t get onto the right one.  It didn’t matter too much since it was still going to the same place.  The car was lined with bright yellow seats and we were forced to squish together as more people boarded the train and sat down on the seats.  It was a very interesting experience.  At one of the stops a preacher even came on board and started pacing back and forth on the train as he gave a very enthusiastic sermon completely with hymns and shouts of “hallelujah!”

                When we reached Simonstad (the stop for Boulders Beach) we took a shuttle to the actual beach part, paid a small fee and walked down the boardwalk.  There were a ton of penguins there.  After walking down the boardwalk we went to the beach where we could swim or just walk around and look at penguins.  There were even more wandering around there!  As proof here is a picture of me planking with some penguins.

 

Apparently penguins bite, so we couldn’t get too close.  I am not sure I want to tell people I was send home from SAS due to a penguin bite…  So I didn’t try to touch them.

                We had lunch at a nice restaurant by the beach before boarding the train again and heading back towards the Waterfront.  This time we did get onto the first class car.  This car was much less crowded than the other one had been and we weren’t squished together.  The others had some shopping to do before heading back to the ship.  I just bought some soda and mouthwash at the store, but that was all I needed.  We were back on the ship in plenty of time.

                I had been sent a Happy Leap Year cake (Thank you, Karen!) and was able to get it to eat after dinner.  It was delicious and perfect after a long day at the beach!  That night we watched more of the Office.  We are up to season 3 now!