Back home after almost 48 hours of traveling. I'll give you the basics and try to upload pictures later this weekend.

We spent our last day in Cape Town proper doing the typical tourist activity: going to the top of Table Mountain. But being...shall we say...optimistic, we decided to walk from our B&B in Bo-Kaap all the way to the top. I have no idea how far it was, but it took 1 1/4 hours to hike to the trailhead and another 1 1/4 hours or so to get up Platteklip Gorge to the top. The first half involved breathing in lots of diesel exhaust and waving away taxi drivers saying we really should catch a ride instead of walking. The second half was the hardest hike I've ever done in my life. That includes 20-mile-a-day treks through the Sierra Nevada with a 35-pound pack on my back! You see, it's all steps. Big steps. No problem for guys over 6 feet tall, but a bit of a haul for this 5'7" gal to hoist herself from one step to the next. It's also very, very steep. We made it, but I was sweaty and exhausted and not breathing so well by the top. And I consider myself fit! (Maybe not anymore.)

That said, it was gorgeous. The first day the weather had been clear enough up top to open it up to visitors out of the last three days. We looked at the fynbos vegetation on the top, drank a ton of water to recover, talked to a nice guy who had come to South Africa from Germany decades before and then got into the revolving cable car to ride down and soak in the view.

We opted for a taxi to get back down to the City Bowl area. It was full of tourists: Brits, Finnish, German and one of the more obnoxious Americans spouting "gee, shucks, your government could make a lot of money if they just caught Osama! haw haw haw!" kind of stuff. I was cringing. I was thinking maybe it's time to sew a Canadian flag onto the backpack... But we survived.

We had our last city dinner at a Cape Malay restaurant on Wale Street not too far from the B&B. Also found out our fellow guests at the B&B had been almost-mugged outside the B&B the day before... Thanks to some attentive neighbors, the would-be thieves got the you-know-what kicked out of them and the tourists held onto their wallets. But I digress. The meal was fantastic. Cape Malay food is hard to describe. I guess it's Indian with a twist. Almost Asian at moments. Very good for meat eaters and, as usual, pretty limited for vegetarians. Veggie curry. Most excellent. Sean had some kind of sweet-and-sour lamb thing.

The next day we got our rental car. Sean bravely took the wheel -- on the "wrong" side of the car, on the "wrong" side of the street -- and we drove through morning traffic out to the N1 and on to the wine country. We tried three different wineries. Fairmont had some good wines and some very tasty goat cheeses. Boschendal is one of the oldest wineries in the area and had tasty wines and a nice tour of the facilities. And Spier, well, we never made it to a wine tasting because I wanted to go pet a cheetah. Yes, I'm officially a Tourist. Hey, what can I say? How often do you get the chance to pet a cheetah for $10 and have the money go toward cheetah conservation? So we petted Joseph's back and sides while he purred and nuzzled his handler. Good times all around.

We spent the night with a friend of a friend in Noordhoek, which is a beach community maybe 40 minutes south of Cape Town proper. She was such a generous hostess to take us in for our last two nights! We tried Cuban food SA-style, which was -- once again -- not so great for this vegetarian. But it was nice to get to know HK and to see a little more of the beach communities as we drove from the winelands to her house and back out for dinner.

Our last day was the 21st. We got up and drove out to Simon's Town, maybe 20 minutes away, to go kayaking on the Indian Ocean by Boulders Beach, where the African penguins have a huge colony. We met Derek, our guide, and paddled out in fits and starts toward the beach. Let's just say I'm a bit of a back seat driver and more of a "back seat paddler" in a two-person kayak...especially when headed toward large metal piers owned by the South African Navy! We were halfway there when the coast guard equivalent zoomed up to us and told us we couldn't go any farther because they were doing underwater explosions. Just at that moment we felt a little one rock the boat and then make a sound a few seconds later. Derek pleaded. No go. So we turned around and paddled into the wind toward Long Beach. Actually, it was the beach next to Long Beach. I forget the name. Anyway, we saw two penguins in the water. Lots of cormorants. We tried to catch the wave onto shore, but we didn't paddle fast enough. So the next wave caught us and blew us both out of the kayak. I was worried about my camera in the "waterproof" bag, but it was okay. We hung out on the beach for a while, dumped the water out of the kayak, and then headed back out to sea. Derek was trying to lift the front of the kayak up over a wave, but the handle broke and we fell right into another wave. Smack in the face! We paddled like crazy and got over the hump of the wave, then waited for Derek to do the same. My arms were sore by the end of that trip...but it was a neat way to explore a little piece of the coastline.

We wandered around Simon's Town, grabbed lunch, and then drove down to Boulders Beach itself. A kind soul directed us toward the "free" area to see the penguins up close, so we hung out with them for a while. They're so used to humans being around them. I could have reached out and touched them! But I refrained, as did Sean. Just took photos and a few videos.

On we went to Cape Point, which may beat the top of Table Mountain for sheer numbers of tourists. We quaked every time we saw baboons on the road, since they're known for being very bold and occasionally vicious toward food-toting tourists. No run-ins though. I made Sean roll up the windows every time we drove by one.

We walked up to the old lighthouse, then out along a trail to the new one. Then we went off on a side trail that was 2/3 boardwalks along the span of rock between Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. (Did you know they were two different spots?) Dipped our toes in the funky yellow foam of the ocean. Hauled up another very steep set of stairs back to the boardwalk. Took in the view at the Cape of Good Hope. Then hiked back.

We hit our first real spot of rain on the scenic route back from Cape Point along the "Misty Shores" region. I was clutching the armrest because the cliff was on the left side of the car and I wasn't quite sure Sean always knew how close he was driving to the left side of the road. Was also trying to read the map. We learned that even the windshield wipers go the "wrong" way. But we survived. Back to HK's house, where we ate pizza, gave her Persian kitties some love and then repacked the bags.

Thursday morning we drove early back to the airport to return the rental car and avoid another day's fee. Sat around for four hours. Got a package from a radio friend to carry home and send to one of his friends here in the States. Flew from Cape Town to Joburg. Braved the bitchy ladies at the VAT tourist refund office -- and, for Sean, the currency exchange place. Braved the pat-downs and pawing through of bags by security people at the airport. (Side note: I find embarassing that all flights to the U.S. are set aside in random corners of international airports to deal with all these extra rules and regs from the TSA. Yet another example of that oh-so-American flavor that I think many people in the rest of the world find either amusing or terrifying.) Then we braved the 17-hour flight to NYC.

This time we stopped in Dakar, Senegal. I was excited, since I've always wanted to go there. But because it was once again in the middle of the night, I couldn't see much besides men in yellow reflective vests and a sign for the Aeroporte de somebody. Hey, I took Dramameine. It's all a little foggy.

We got to JFK just after 6 this morning. Got our bags, took the lovely Air Train to Jet Blue and checked the bags in at 7:30. Another four-hour wait. Learned about Britney's meltdown and that Anna Nicole Smith, whose death was the headline the day we left, is STILL the top news story two weeks later. Wandered unsuccessfully in search of an internet kiosk. Then sat through the longest Jet Blue flight in history. It wasn't delayed, but I was really damn tired of being in planes.

Still, we survived. We arrived at Long Beach. My kind uncle was there to greet us. My green bag was not. Initially. Turns out the airport folks had hidden it "backstage" for some reason. We jumped onto the 710 and braved Friday traffic. Picked up my car, took the surface roads, and arrived home to a hungry cat and a big pile of mail.

There you have it. No wrenching feeling at leaving South Africa as there always is with PNG, but I'm so glad to have had the chance to explore it a little. I wish we'd had two more weeks. I keep thinking about how so many of the trees there are like big umbrellas: expansive, reaching out, offering comfort and shade. I think of the op-ed I read in the Joburg paper that talked about Africans' patience...what people from other cultures often see as laziness, do-nothing or being bums...is really knowing how to be patient. I like that. It's a skill I hope to -- and need to -- improve.

So many South Africans are excited for the soccer World Cup in 2010. They're building new stadiums, beefing up efforts to improve the safety and security situation. Some question what that money could do if it were put toward social services. But they also fear that the World Cup will freak out and deem SA "not safe enough" to hold the games. I hope that's not the case. It's a great place. Let me know if you want some recommendations and keep an eye out for that South African Airways two-tickets-for-the-price-of-one deal...

And keep an eye out for the "best of" pictures coming your way in the next day or two.