Jackass Penguins

Friday 22 March 2019

** Alert **

The following paragraph is unconscionably serious and so should be ignored as the dreary maunderings of someone with too much time on his hands.

Yesterday was Human Rights Day in South Africa. Great idea to celebrate every individual's inalienable right to life, liberty and property. The UN has a list that contains those plus 27 more such as the right to a "good life", some of which is apparently to be provided by other people. Seems that the concept of rights is a bit slippery. Do you have the right to make someone give you stuff to make you happy? Where do their rights fit in here? Also, rights are often referenced to groups, e.g. this tribe, clan, pack has these rights and this other mob has these rights. OK, but only people qua individuals can experience a right and shouldn't every person have exactly the same rights? Perhaps we should pay more attention to what words mean.

Monday

Speaking of words with meaning, we went to the Boulders Beach Penguin Colony yesterday where there is a colony of penguins on a beach strewn with boulders. No confusion there. African penguins (also called jackass because they bray like donkeys) are twice as large as fairy penguins and as cute as a bugs ear (having never witnessed this epitome of cuteness, would appreciate information on which bug is referenced). Their photos just beg to be anthropomorphized with adorable captions such as "nobody saw me do that, right?" or "Well just look at that, I'm a boy!".

The topography of this entire area is spectacular. Flat-topped Table Mountain rises 1085 meters nearly vertically above Cape Town. For those people in we-should-have-gone-metric-50-years-ago-when-told-it-would-happen-in-5-years land that's 3560 feet. Haven't ridden cable car to top yet (Jan gets a little twitchy contemplating hanging at eight hundred meters above ground on a wire), but it's on the agenda.

No one needs inveigling to visit vintners, however, and South Africa makes some very good wine. We want to visit every estate - all of them. With two weeks to get to 546 in the country including tastings, that's about 39 wineries and 8 1/3 bottles a day, each. We can do that.

Had been taking opiates on a regular basis (three pills on Saturday) then overnight pain went from unreasonable to background noise handled with Paracetamol (Tylenol). Sixteen and a half days post-op. I'm laughin'. Now we can save the 17 left-overs for party night or possibly to put in the medical kit for an emergency while on passage.

Jack & Jan