Hot Penguins

Some of our most memorable experiences on this journey have been when we got up close and personal with animals. We snuggled the sloths in Panama (three separate visits), we swam with whale sharks and turtles in Mexico, we loved the hippos in Zimbabwe and here in South Africa we visited the penguins. We call them “hot penguins” because they are the kind that like a warm environment, as opposed to those cold-loving ones you study about in 2nd grade in public school.

Boulder’s Beach is just east of Cape Town. We paid about $14 USD for our family to get in. Once you go in you have free reign of the beach, which is both sandy and filled with large boulders (hence the name). The penguins are everywhere. It’s like an Easter Egg hunt but VERY easy, and only black and white “eggs”. You can walk around and stumble across penguins lying around or swimming or waddling to and fro. A lot of them were in the process of mating, or they were laying together. It was fun to see how social they are, and Haley explained that they mate for life. They were almost all in pairs if you looked closely. Haley enjoyed pointing out which penguins were coupled. We felt bad for the ones who clearly were still looking. Maybe someone will develop a Tinder app for penguins.

We also saw a few that were very busy. If I were a penguin I would have been one of those. One guy was constantly walking back to a hole in the rocks with twigs, coming out again, finding a stick or two, walking back with it. You really had to get out of his way, he was on a mission. I liked him, I could relate.

These penguins are also called Jackass Penguins, or “Beach Donkeys”. During mating season they make a call that sounds very much like a donkey. It was surprisingly loud and aggressive coming from a cute little tuxedo-clad animal.

Here’s some pictures of our day.