Ephemera #178

• I haven't updated my walking since the end of June and, frankly, I haven't walked much in that time.  I've only walked seven times since the 27th of June, the longest period between hikes being thirty-five days which covered most of July.  The only reason I can give are the humid days we've had this summer.  I mean, lately, it feels like you can barely breathe, the air being so thick.  So, since my last update, I walked 37.1 miles (59.7 km) which is sad for a fifty-six day period.  That should have been between 100 and 140 miles really.  Disappointing.
• This week we visited our travel agent and finalized a few things for our next trip coming in October.  We will be traveling in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France (north of Paris mostly).  The Wife has been doing a lot of work booking tours and tickets.  it's going to be an interesting trip.
  
  While at the agents, we provided more information for the Southern Spain Holy Week trip we are planning for next March.  She will help us with transportation and hotels.  One spot we may visit has a connection to the Aragoness portion of the Camino that I walked in 2013.  I think the Wife will like it (assuming it survives the fires in Spain).
• At the end of this week we will be going to the Denver area to go to a John Fogerty (from Creedence Clearwater Revival) concert at Red Rocks.

2026 Cape Town, South Africa, Part 3: Paragliding ... Food ... Dogs

July 18: Paragliding and more.

Since shark cage diving didn't kill us, today we took an Uber to Signal Mountain to go tandem paragliding.  Signal Mountain overlooks the oceanfront.  The clouds were low this morning and we were concerned about having to postpone.  As we were going through the orientation, the view we had of the ocean and the neighborhoods below us disappeared.  We joked around with our tandem partners as we waited to see what was going to happen with the weather and, as quick as the clouds came in, it cleared up.

Paragliding over Cape Town, the Atlantic Ocean, and the landing zone below us.

I didn't know what to expect.  It turned out paragliding is more like hot air ballooning than skydiving.  Once you get over the idea of running off of a mountain, the rest is very relaxing.  My tandem partner explained everything to me as he caught thermals to keep us up in the air.  The flight took us around one side of signal mountain, over an oceanfront neighborhood, over the Atlantic before landing in a seaside park.  He did offer to let me 'fly' the paraglider but I decided just to go along with the ride and let the professional do the flying.  The Wife and I really enjoyed the experience.

The park was busy with a 5k being run in the area.  Booths were set up selling running paraphernalia including one called 'Ass Magic'.   We were going to Uber to the hotel but realized the park wasn't that far from the Victoria & Albert (V&A) waterfront so we walked it.  We had some lunch there and did more shopping.

Singers and dancers at the Gold Restaurant.
(Photo taken by the Wife.)

In the evening we went to Gold Restaurant to eat local cuisine and watch dancers and singers.  The Wife made the innocent mistake of telling our server that it would be my birthday in a couple days and I ended up with the circle of singing servers wishing me a happy birthday.  Yeah ... not my favorite thing.  The Wife took several videos of the show ... Check them out in the Google Photos album.

July 19: A free day for church, more shopping, and minor distress.

Sunday morning started with ... intestinal distress.  Something I ate was not so golden at the Gold Restaurant.  Fortunately, I travel with medicine for exactly such situations.

We walked to a church for Mass before returning to V&A.  We were caught in the rain but we were prepared with our umbrellas.  This time we visited an enclosed, high-end market.  They had a lot of cool stuff but it was all overpriced.

A set of statues at V&A.
(Photo taken by the Wife.)

My intestinal distress cleared up by the end of the day.

July 20: A free day for the Museum of the Dog, the Iziko Slave Lodge, and a birthday dinner.

For my birthday we walked around old town starting with lunch and another visit to Green Market Square for some last minute shopping (We shop a lot and ... I spent a lot more than the Wife).

We walked to the Museum of Dogs which tells the history of Cape Town, and South African, life through the eyes of dogs and their owners.  It was, actually, interesting.  It helps if you do the scavenger hunt you can pick up at the front desk.

After the more light hearted Museum of Dogs, we walked to the much more serious Iziko Slave Lodge museum that chronicles slavery in South Africa.  We're not big museum people but we seem to be getting better in our old age as we are enjoying them more.

In the evening we went to Nelson's Eye Steakhouse for my birthday dinner.  The food was really good and there weren't any singing waiters or anything.

July 21: Castle of Good Hope and heading home.

Our flight home wasn't until 8:00PM so we visited the Castle of Good Hope, a mix of Castle and museum.  We spent time there going through the various military and historic museums and exploring the castle before we had to go to the airport.

The interior courtyard of the Castle of Good Hope with Table Mountain in the background.
(Photo taken by the Wife.)

We went to the airport early but this gave us time to eat a good lunch before we had to check in and go through security.

The return flight was an hour longer than the outbound flight but it went fairly quickly and we arrived mid-morning which is an odd time for us.

Cape Town is an interesting place and we took full advantage of the time we had there.  As we advance in age, this will probably be our last trip to Africa as we are shifting more to Europe and perhaps South America.  Cape Town's mixture of cultures made it a good place to finish off the continent.

Photos can be seen in my 2026-07 Cape Town South Africa Google Photos album.

2026 Cape Town, South Africa, Part 2: City ... Island ... Penguin Colony

July 15: City Walking Tour.

We didn't realize how tired we were from the shark cage diving the day before but we both ended up sleeping nearly eleven hours. Today we had a walking tour scheduled for the afternoon.  We walked from the hotel to the meeting point.  It was a drizzly day.  We ate at a great brunch place called Egghead before meeting with our guide.

The colorful Bo-Kaap neighborhood.

The gentleman who was supposed to be our guide was sick so he sent us Teresa.  She was a character.  She took us on a meandering walk past museums, historical buildings, parks, and districts like colorful Bo-Kaap.  Teresa was more of a friend showing off her hometown than a tour guide which suited us just fine.  She adjusted the route, avoiding places we'd visited on our free day, and added things we asked about.

The tour ended at the Victoria & Alfred (V&A) Waterfront, an upscale shopping and eating area which we would visit multiple times during our stay.  V&A was also where the ferry we would take to Robben Island would leave.  We visited a three story souvenir shop and had lunch in a restaurant while watching dancers in a little square.

We decided to walk back to the hotel which turned out to be a little too much for us after walking all afternoon.  I'm not sure how far we walked but I would guess around 8 miles (12.9 km) total.

July 16: Robben Island and Table Mountain.

Today we took an Uber – they were dirt cheap in Cape Town – back to the V&A and took a ferry to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned.  While he was imprisoned for a total of twenty-seven years, he spent eighteen of those years on Robben Island.

We disembarked the ferry on the island and got on busses that would take us around the island showing the various prisons on the island and talking about the various people who were imprisoned here.

Nelson Mandela's cell.

The final stop was the prison where Mandela had been held.  Here we were led by a former prisoner who explained about the conditions and the experiences of the prisoners.  He was an interesting man.

After returning on the ferry to V&A, we took an Uber to Table Mountain.

The rotating tram to Table Mountain.

Table mountain overlooks all of Cape Town.  While you can hike up to the top, we decided to take the tram.  The tram is one of three in the world that rotate as they move along the cable.  This allows the riders a complete 360° view during the ascent and descent.  We ate lunch and did some shopping at the top before taking in the beautiful views of Cape Town.  This day turned out to have the best weather of all our days in Cape Town so we were lucky.

A panorama of Cape Town from Table Mountain.

July 17: Cape of Good Hope and Penguins.

Our original itinerary had us going to Zimbabwe and taking a helicopter flight over Victoria Falls but, before we even left the States, we realized we didn't have any way to get to Zimbabwe and the tour was canceled.  Instead, the Wife booked a coastal tour.

One of the coastal overlooks on a hazy day.

The coastal tour picked us up at our hotel and took us along the coast visiting different parts of Cape Town along the coast.  We stopped at viewpoints to see the rough, boulder strewn coast along the Atlantic Ocean.

Some of the seals from Seal Island.

We got out of a van and got on a boat tour that took us out to Seal Island.  Someone onboard had a drone that probably got some incredible footage.

A female ostrich.

Back on land we did some shopping while we waited to join another van with more people which took us to an Ostrich farm before ending near the Cape of Good Hope.  We ate lunch here.

A baboon that passed me on the trail.

After lunch we had three options: A funicular up to a lighthouse, a short uphill hike to the lighthouse, or a roughly forty-five minutes hike down to the Cape of Good Hope.  The wife, a fan of funiculars chose the funicular ride.  The rest of the group, myself included, decided on the longer hike to the Cape of Good Hope.  Unfortunately, due to electrical fluctuations, the funicular closed right as the Wife was approaching the ticket booth window.

On the trail down to the Cape of Good Hope.

I didn't know this as I was already hiking down.  Along the way I was passed by three baboons that didn't seem to care about me ... one passing within six inches (15 cm) of me.  The hike was mostly downhill giving spectacular views of the rocky cliffs and a secluded beach.  Near the end the hike went up a little to a viewpoint above the cape.  The trail down from the viewpoint to the beach parking area was a bit treacherous – I wish I'd had my trekking poles.

African Penguins at Boulders Beach.

The bus picked up everyone at the bottom and we drove to Boulders Beach to see a penguin colony.  We had time to visit the African penguins.

After a brief delay when one of our bus mates went missing, we returned to our hotel.

Photos can be seen in my 2026-07 Cape Town South Africa Google Photos album.

2026 Cape Town, South Africa, Part 1: Three Words – Shark ࢈ Cage ࢈ Diving

July 11 - July 12: Getting There.

We Left Omaha at 8:00pm, one of the latest flights we've ever taken out of the airport.  This was the start of a combined sixteen to seventeen hours of flight time between Omaha, Atlanta, and Cape Town, South Africa.  The two flights and the one layover went remarkably smoothly.

Once we got to Cape Town, getting to our hotel was a bit ... hazardous though that might be too harsh a word for what eventually happened.  We went through a gauntlet of taxi drivers and, it turned out, fake Uber drivers.  We, unfortunately picked the wrong guy.  He got us to our hotel in a timely fashion but he tried to charge our credit card one hundred times the actual fare.  Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for the fraudulent Uber driver, my credit card declined the charge.  I blame nobody but myself for walking into that mess.  Fortunately we didn't lose any money and, so far, our card number has not been used fraudulently.  Kudos to our credit card security folks.

July 13: A Free Day To Wander

Our first full day was a free day for us.  We filled it up with a few things.  First we walked to the District 6 museum.  Along the way we saw statues of Nelson Mandela and Bishop Tutu.  The museum was interesting telling the history of apartheid.  The museum is small but full of interesting, thought provoking  displays.

The District 6 Museum.
(Photo taken by the Wife)

After the museum we walked to the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Flight into Egypt.  Unfortunately we could not go in due to restoration work that was going on ... and apparently it was a long way from being finished.  We did stop at a gift shop hoping to find a Mary figure that the Wife read about but they did not have it nor had they ever heard of it.  This would be the first time in years that the Wife would not come home with a new Mary figurine or icon.

One of the attractive walking paths in Cape Town.
(Photo taken by the Wife)

Next we went to Green Market Square to check out the market.  We would visit it several times during our stay in Cape Town.  One interesting thing is most tourist markets here are not limited to South African handicrafts but cover most of South Saharan Africa.  I presume that is because South Africa may be most travelers' one and only visit to the African continent.

From left to right: Ostrich, Kudu, and Springbok.
(Photo taken by the Wife)

In the evening we walked to Marco's African Place for dinner.  The restaurant serves different types of game animals and has live African music.  We had the Pan-African Platter which had grilled ostrich, Kudu, and Springbok.  I have to say, my meat palette really couldn't tell much difference between the three but they were all lean and good.

July 14: Shark Cage Diving!

The primary reason we selected Cape Town for our trip was shark cage diving.  We heard about it from some fellow travelers during our trip to China back in 2012.  Things have changed since 2012.  The great white sharks they were famous for are no longer there due to overfishing and unruly orcas.  Despite that, there were plenty of sharks to see.

A visitor that the crew hand fed on the way out to see the sharks.

We were picked up at our hotel and driven to Simon's Town, a township that is part of sprawling Cape Town.  We got on a small boat with twelve guests and four crew.  We stayed relatively close to shore even though you really couldn't see it.  We passed Seal island to see the seals, and the main meal for the sharks in the area.

We anchored and the cage went over the side.  The cage was lashed to the side of the boat.  We put on wetsuits.  Only ten of the twelve guests were going in (not everyone was comfortable doing this) so we got in the cage in groups of five.  We all used respirators tethered to the boat which allowed us to stay underwater indefinitely.  Now, it's winter time in South Africa and the water is cold.  The water temperature was actually higher than the air temperature but there was an initial shock when I slid into the cage.  I turned on my waterproof camera and I got an error – it couldn't read the card.  Fortunately, after a minute or two, it started to work.  I'm assuming it was a thermal shock to the camera as well.  We spent about twenty-five minutes in the water (The Wife and I were in the second group).  The first five to ten minutes were fine but I've noticed the video footage I took became more and more shaky as I stayed in the water.  By the time I got out I was shivering uncontrollably.  Here is a link to my first, unedited video which should give you an idea of what we saw.

A Bronze Whaler or Copper Shark seen from the boat.
(Photo taken by the Wife)

Despite being cold, I managed to take three videos that showed several sharks up close, lured by the chum that was tossed in the water.  The sharks are Copper or Bronze Whalers that grow up to 11 feet (3.3 m) long.  In some cases, the cage was shaken when a shark hit the cage with its tail.  The Wife and I were both very happy with our one, and most likely only, shark cage diving experience.  Highly recommended.

Note:  While I had three cameras with me, I let the Wife take most of the cell phone pictures I'll be using to document most of the trip.  I was too lazy to pull out my phone most of the time.

Photos can be seen in my 2026-07 Cape Town South Africa Google Photos album.

The Next Adventure - Cape Town, South Africa

This weekend we are leaving to go to Cape Town, South Africa.  The trip is twelve days (including travel days).  We have a few activities nailed down including one we have been thinking about since 2012.  We will be doing the following:

• Shark Cage Diving: This is the one we've thought about since 2012.  We met a family during our China trip that had done it and had really enjoyed it.  I hope they dress us warm since it's winter there. (Yes, I'm more worried about staying warm than I am about the sharks.)
• A Walking Tour of Old Town, Cape Town: This will get us familiarized with the city.
• Robben Island and the Prison: Can't go to South Africa without some Nelson Mandela history.
• Table Mountain Cable Car: A trip up to Table Mountain in a rotating cable car, one of only three in the world.
• Tandem Paragliding: If going up to the top of Table Mountain weren't high enough, how about paragliding over Cape Town ... why the heck not.

We were going to take a helicopter tour of Victoria Falls but, unfortunately, that tour was canceled.

We have four free days which we will fill with smaller tours and activities that we'll work out while we are there.

One nice thing is we will be in the same hotel the entire time so no packing and unpacking while we are there,

I will, of course, document and share photos of our trip when I get back ... if we get back (LOL).

Ephemera #177

It seems I'm writing less and less.

• Since my last Ephemera post I have had my prostate biopsy and I have received results.  The results were confusing initially because I expected a twenty-four biopsy sample but only twelve were listed in the results.  After talking to the Urology PA I discovered that the twelve were locations and two samples were taken at each location.  The next confusing thing about my results was that they were all benign.  This felt strange since a year ago I had several samples with cancerous cells.  Again, my PA cleared this up telling me that this is not abnormal and it simply means my cancer is not growing/spreading.  So, what all this means is the news was all positive.  I will be seeing the urologist in a year and we'll see if she wants another biopsy done then.
  
  I mentioned last Ephemera post that the biopsies felt like little bee stings.  It turns out my last urologist just wasn't very good at it.  My new urologist was awesome.  She announced each sample and I hardly felt anything.  When I did feel something she added more local anesthetic, something my old urologist never even asked if I wanted.
• Last weekend we went to the Wife's stomping grounds and met with a few of her family that were visiting.  We had a fun evening at the Haverhill Social Club.
• The egg by our front door has a brother/sister.  The two eggs should be hatching sometime this week.
• Since my last Ephemera post I walked seven times for a total of 56.5 miles (91 km).  This coming week the weather, specifically dangerous heat indexes, will likely stop me from walking.

Our Front Door Is Temporarily Off Limits

The Wife went out to water the petunias on the front door entryway and discovered this in one of the planters:

A dove in the oven.

The nest and egg is a mourning dove egg.  We have seen her sitting on the nest and we have declared the front door closed for use until it hatches.

Mourning doves are not new to our house but this is the first nest in a potted plant.

Ephemera #176

• Went to see "Mandalorian and Grogu".  While I liked it, it would have made a better three episode arc for the TV series than a movie.  I was hoping, as a movie, it would have higher production values and writing, but it was the same as the TV series.  It felt like they put this out to attract more subscribers to Disney+.
  
  I also watched a couple marvel shows.  The first was season two of "Daredevil: Born Again".  This I liked.  Looking forward to season three.  The other was "Wonder Man".  This short season one was an introduction to the characters.  It was good enough but I think the real meat of the series will be in season two.
• I walked 5 times since the last Ephemera post totalling 32.8 miles (52.9 km).  It is getting hotter and more humid here in Omaha so walking has become a struggle.  It sucks when you totally soak your shirt with sweat after walking only three blocks.
• This week I have my prostate biopsy.  It's a more detailed biopsy as the MRI reader suggested.  This means twenty-four samples versus the usual twelve samples.  Not really looking forward to this as each sample collection feels like a bee sting in your nether regions.

Ephemera #175

I can't call this post Weekly Ephemera when I haven't been even close to being weekly.   Let's see if I can catch up with what has been happening over the month since my last ephemera post.

• Three weeks ago we went to the Hot Shops open house.  It had been a few years since the last time we'd attended one of these biannual open houses.  It was a beautiful day for it.  We went downtown, had lunch near the stadium, and walked over to Hot Shops.  We browsed the artists' studios and had a nice afternoon.  The Wife bought some Nun note cards and I bought a t-shirt with original art.
• Last weekend we went to Minneapolis to attend the confirmations of three of the Wife's cousins (third removed).  The Wife was sponsor for one of them.  We had a party and attended the ceremony at the cathedral.  It was nice.
• 
  Usually, when we visit family in Minneapolis we usually just do things with the cousins but this time we had some free time and we went to see Paisley Park, the studio, and eventually home, of Prince.  It was a very put together museum and tour.  The Wife was more into Prince than I was but I still found it interesting.  Photos were restricted in most areas but they did allow a few in one area of the complex.  (2026-05-18 Paisley Park Google Photos album)
• The weekend we went to the Brownville Flea Market, market as the world largest which I think is a bit exaggerated.  This is another thing we used to do regularly but haven't done in over five years.  We tried hard but we didn't find any treasures to buy.  We ate some delicious pulled pork and mac-n-cheese and headed back home empty handed.  I wasn't really looking for anything in particular but you could probably find anything you wanted there if you looked hard enough.
• I had my biannual blood draw a week ago.  My glucose and A1C numbers did improve a bit but my lipids inch up.  Most of those are still in the normal range but my HDL (good cholesterol) was well below the good range which sucks.  I have a visit with my nurse practitioner this coming week so we'll see what she thinks.
• My walking has been a bit sporadic.  Since my last Ephemera post, I've walked only 44.3 miles (71.2 km).  I even took last week off which wasn't helpful.  This week i'm going to get back into it ... as I have promises again and again and again and ...

Fifteenth Caminoversary ... How Time Flies

Today marks the fifteenth anniversary of me starting my first Camino de Santiago.  I was excited and a bit nervous as I left St Jean Pied de Port, FR on a five hundred plus mile trek across northern Spain.  A walk that would change how I saw myself.  I have tried to recapture that feeling on other hikes but some first times cannot be repeated.

A sunrise full of promise.

This also marks the beginning of the Wife's Camino in 2023.  She also had a meaningful experience.  I guess the Camino has a way of touching people in special ways.