Mother's Day in Cape Town by Susie

Now this day can’t ever be beat for the rest of my life. First of all, I have my husband and my boy all to myself for three months, these 24 hours of Mother’s Day included. Second, we are currently standing on the southern most tip of the African continent, called the Cape of Good Hope.  Where two oceans meet, the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, this is as close as we can get to the South Pole. It’s darn near magnificent, to say the least. Starting at breakfast time, everyone we meet, all day long, offers me a cheery “Happe Mother’s Day!” Who knew that mothers are honored all over the world on the same day? (It’snot just a FTD + Hallmark hype to sell cards and flowers…which makes the day even more poignant for me now). The gale force winds practically blow us off the rocky trail to the old Cape lighthouse, which gives me the excuse to hug both my guys a little closer. Plus, there are these little wild hyrax darting all around our feet (they look just like big brown guinea pigs, but are actually related to elephants- go figure). Walking back to the car, we see that a big old baboon has decided to sit on top and check out the surf.  Too cool! Just like Noa has been doing. We stopped at a little surfshop in Kammetje where the local guys told us (“Happy Mother’s Day”) and it’s better to surf on the Atlantic side, less shark attacks (uh, really?). The water is super cold, like miserable cold, but we see some boogie boarders head out through the rocks and big rubbery kelp. The super strong offshore winds hold the waves up and whisk the spray backwards, making for some awesome photos. Speaking of which, that was my Mother’s Day present… a much needed new camera. We bought it yesterday at the V&A Waterfront mall in Cape Town, with a 30x zoom to get all these great surf and animal pix. Noa has instantly mastered all the fancy features and camera settings to become our documentary expert for the trip.  “Stop!” I shout out to Les, “there’s an Ostrich, right by the road!” Another pic. “Look there!” I squeal again, “There’s another baboon family…take a pic! Yikes, roll up the window! -the baboons are coming for my lemon cookie!” The road signs all along have warned us about the bossy baboons. This Mother’s Day is too much fun. We pass beautiful Cape vineyards and vow to send home a case of wine before we leave. Circling back we stop by Shelley Beach to see the local Penguin colony waddling on land and darting in the tide. Les is stoked to find the town called Fish Hoeck where all the top surfski paddlers are from. Bummer, there’s a race next weekend, but we’ll be gone to Kruger by then.  No wonder these paddlers are the best, the wind and chop keep your surfski skills challenged to the max! But look at all those warning signs, “Never surfski alone”…we’re on the Great White side of the Cape now. Paddle fast and don’t fall in, is the surfski motto here. (I’ll let Noa tell you about the Great White Shark cage dive he talked us into doing, tomorrow.) It’s been a long day exploring the tip of South Africa, and Les has driven the right-sided, left-laned, rental car almost perfectly. It’s always fun to shout out a few, “Wrong Way! Head on traffic!” alerts on the way back to our little apartment in Camps Bay. Near death experiences keep the nerve endings alive and tingling! All in all, this Mother’s Day has been a blessing to be sure. Sitting at a beach side italian pizzaria for dinner in Camps Bay (with a free glass of wine for all mothers to boot), I called my mom in Oregon, Les called his mom in Boulder City to say we love them so.  For without our amazing mothers to get us started and feel the confidence and love for the world and each other…as Noa would say, “We wouldn’t be here!”