Going home, away from the weather

I'm leaving Cape Town and Africa tomorrow. Anne is leaving on Sunday. People tell me that the weather in Oslo now is perfect, so I'm looking forward to see the sun again. This is how the weather looks this Monday:

Here is a live picture from Cape Town:

Hiking up Lion's Head

One of the coolest things about Cape Town is that there are three mountains smack bang in the middle of the city. Everyone knows Table Mountain, the big flat one. To the left of Table Mnt you have Devil's Peak and on the right hand side a small round cool mountain called Lion's Head. This afternoon we went on a wonderful hike up Lion's Head to watch the sunset. Eleven Norwegians, a couple of Americans and my Swazi friend Mzwandile set off at about 1630. The hike is only 45 min and you have a fantastic view of the city at all times, as you walk around the mountain two times to get to the top. Once we reached the "summit" wine, cheese and Norwegian milk chocolate was served!

Hike up Lions Head

Enjoy the pictures and see for yourself why Cape Town is called the most beautiful city in the world!

Sharks!

We just got back from an outing to Kleinsbaai close to Hermanus in the Western Cape. The reason for the outing was the great WHITE SHARK! The tour operator fetched us at home at 0600 this morning and we slept through the two hour drive to shark-country. When looking at the waves we started to imagine what the trip would be like and we were not wrong. Espen spent most of the trip looking pretty light green and feeding the fish. After a short boat ride the boat crew started attracting the sharks, called "chumming", by trowing out fish heads and blood in the water. After only a few minutes the first sharks appeared. They are BIG! We got into our wetsuit and jumped into the cage. The crew kept throwing out the bait and shouted "down, left/right" when the sharks appeared. Several 3-4 meter white sharks passed right by us, one even slammed into the cage. Amazing! The sea was quite rough and it was pretty intense to be put into a small cage while it slammed against the side of the boat. Even though we both got pretty sea sick it was worth the money and time (this is Anne writing, Espen might not agree:)).

Not everyone likes this business though and some has voiced that tour operators teach the sharks to associate humans with food. The guides assured us that they seldom saw the same shark for more than a couple of weeks and argued that it was not enough time for the shark to make this association.

Take a look at the pictures. There are not too many of them though, as we were both busy taking care of ourselves...

Double-me (Hey, thats my glass!)

Double-me (Hey, thats my glass!)
Originally uploaded by esp0.

Been very busy lately, so no time to write a blog-entry. We are coming home to Norway in 4-5 weeks.

In the meanwhile, enjoy the picture of Espen and Me while we are watching TV.

(I think he is trying to steal my drink!)

Going on safari, is that all we do?

That is what my mother asked the other day. She complained a bit about the pictures we have posted in the albums and said she was tired of elephants and giraffes and now wanted to see more pictures of people and of daily life. So if you find a picture of me making a sandwich or the high way in Cape Town, they are for her:)

Winter is arriving in Cape Town and the past few days has been a bit gloomy, rainy and cold. You wouldn't think that 13-14 degrees should be so cold, but when the house does not have insulation is makes you put on your woolen underwear inside. After a week of indoor-life, movies and hot chocolate things started to look better. Yesterday the sun came out again and today we have been on a diving trip to Simons Town with our friends Katinka and Anders. We had a really nice dive with warm water and good visibility. Espen and Anders even saw a small shark (thankfully not a great white!).

Seeing that this is a long weekend we tried to go on an expedition to Hermanus, a coast side village approx 2 hours outside Cape Town a couple of days ago. But with our good car karma one of the front tyres broke in the middle of the Winelands. A spare tyre and helpful petrol station staff got us going again and we ended up wine tasting instead.

Easter - People Pictures

Last weeks of April