SP came to town! Day 2

Day 2 was a journey in search of penguins and breathtaking coastline up and down the Cape peninsula:

After a hearty breakfast at a cute bakery (Olympia Cafe) filled with good coffee and seductive chocolate croissants, we followed the tracks down south...

...to arrive in Simon's Town, searching for penguins:

At first we only saw beautiful, rock-filled beaches with mountains in the distance, but upon looking more closely...

Penguins!

After satisfying our penguin-viewing ambitions, we went further south to reach the Cape of Good Hope -- not the southern most tip of the continent, but still an extremely windy, gorgeous place to hang:

Looking up to the lighthouse:

We decided we had to go down there! The view looking backwards:

Turns out there's another lighthouse down below:

Accompanied by a monkey on our way out:

I had gotten SP to sign up for paragliding off Signal Hill (right next to Lion's Head), so we headed back up the peninsula, this time sticking to the western coast for different but still similarly majestic views:

The famed Hout Bay:

Once we drove up Signal Hill, we settled into waiting for the right winds for our paragliding venture, and found just the right frame:

#collegefriends

After waiting for about an hour or so, we jumped off! Truth be told, this was perhaps the most disappointing part of SP's entire visit. The glide lasted the minimum amount possible -- maybe three minutes or so -- and SP's knee was aching and slightly injured due to the climb up Lion's Head the day before, which her tandem paraglider utterly ignored. We perhaps could have lingered a bit more down the peninsula if not for the paragliding session, but alas. At least it did offer a fantastic view of the city, even if only for a short while:

That pretty much ended our day. We relaxed for a bit at the apartment before going out for dinner in Hout Bay (advice for future travelers: not worth it to try to find a restaurant right next to the water for the sake of dining during the sunset, stick to more established places). The next day, we drove over to Stellenbosch early in the morning to drop her off for her conference, thus concluding the first half of the adventure!