Shark Diving in Gansbaai

After Cape Town we went to Gansbaai for a day and went shark diving.  It was incredible!  We saw five different great white sharks and they were huge (I thought for sure they would tip over out boat).  One even got his head stuck in our cage.  We have videos on our Facebook page.

It was freezing cold!  55 degree water and probably 50 degrees outside with a breeze.

Horrible photo.  They kept breeching, but I was too fascinated by everything to get any good shots.

Cape Town

Cape Town was gorgeous!  I loved the coast in South Africa.  Unfortunately we didn't get to see Table Mountain because it was covered in clouds the entire time (huge bummer).

The first day we took the tram up the Table Top Mountain and walked around downtown.

View of Cape Town from the base of Table Mountain.

Me and Jim Vosburgh at the base of Table Mountain.

At the top of Table Mountain, this view was just named one of the seven wonders of the world... and we couldn't see it because it was in the clouds.

Downtown Cape Town... again, no Table Top Mountain.  I could tell it was glorious though.

Our hotel right behind us.

Downtown Cape Town.

The second day we went out to Robben Island.

Me and Jim on the ferry.

Entrance to Robben Island Jail.

Robben Island is super interesting because all of the tour guides are former inmates.  Our tour guide was incarcerated for bombing a government building.  He served with Nelson Mandela.

In the Robben Island Jail

Nelson Mandela's Prison Cell.

On the coast of Robben Island.  Our children have no hope when it comes to foreheads or calves.

The following day we went to the wine country and visited Speir Wine Estates.  It was beautiful, but not great for people who don't drink.

Johannesburg

We spent 6 days in Johannesburg.  Johannesburg was extremely diverse.  We stayed in a crazy nice hotel that had a Lamborghini dealership in it, but there were millions of people living in squalor without plumbing or electricity.  It was a neat city and I felt safe in a lot of the areas, but we weren't allowed to go in many areas due to the amount of crime.  While we were there our travel guide's sister got murdered.

Our first day we walked around tried to stay awake after our crazy 35 hours of travel.  It proved to be pretty difficult.

Oliver and I in Nelson Mandela Square.  We stayed at the Da Vinci that was connected to this square.

Jim Vosburgh and me dying of jet lag in Mushroom Park.

Our second day in Johannesburg we went Pilannesburg Game Reserve outside of Sun City.  We did a half day safari and we got to see a few animals.  It was awesome!

Oliver and Jim at Pilannesburg - I may have made them stand like this.

The main reason for the trip was to tour international businesses.  They were all very interesting, but my favorite was the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.  We met with 3 Executives from the JSE.  It was super interesting to hear the locals opinions on their economy and their government.

Half of the group went one day to Soccer City where they held the 2010 World Cup.  We ended up just paying a Janitor to take us on a private tour.

Our favorite day in Johannesburg is when we went out to Soweto and did a bike tour and visited an Orphanage.  It was really interesting to get into the townships and get a real idea of how most of the country lives.

Jim and Oliver decided to ride tandem.

These are their beer cartons.

Little girls outside of the orphanage.

This little guy followed us around everywhere.

In the townships.

Dancing with the kids at the orphanage.

Sketchy cow-cheek street food that had probably been sitting out for hours.

Oliver eating the sketchy street food.

They only got in a handful of fights, but they successfully conquered the tandem bike tour.

Other fun things we did in Johannesburg:

-We went and saw an African musical named Umoja.  

-We went to a lot of really neat authentic African restaurants.