Surfer in Antarctica surrounded by jumping penguins

Surfer in Antarctica surrounded by jumping penguins

This video makes me want to go back to Antarctica.

African Penguins

I've been thinking a lot about what I want to do when my 4 dogs are gone and I can sell my house, and have been looking into volunteering in Africa. I've been to Kenya and Tanzania and want to see more of the continent. Earlier this week I found an organization http://www.enkosiniecoexperience.com/ that has several opportunities for working with wildlife including working at the Penguin Conservation Centre in Cape Town. The center rescues African Penguins (aka Jackass Penguins) and other birds that have been injured or have become victims of oil spills. Volunteers work for a minimum of 6 weeks and learn how to handle, wash, and hand-raise all types of birds. I love penguins and have been in the water with them in the Galapagos and sat on the beach with them in Antarctica so this seems like the perfect opportunity for me.

I also want to to tour South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia and could do this before or after the volunteer experience. I want to see the painted houses of the Ndebele of South Africa and the Okavango Delta in Botswana. Both of these deserve a separate post.

Antarctica

In 1998 I fulfilled a lifelong dream and went to Antarctica for 3 weeks. I flew from Houston to Miami to Santiago, Chile to Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost city in the world. From Ushuaia I boarded a small Russian research vessel that had been converted to a tourist ship. There were about 40 passengers aboard including the Pulitzer Prize winning author Annie Dillard who wrote about our trip in a journal. Our guide was Jonathan Chester who has written many books including A for Antarctica, Splash! : a penguin counting book, and The Nature of Penguins. HCPL has these books and more by both Dillard and Chester. In addition to Antarctica we also went to South Georgia which is part of the Falkland Islands and where the explorer Shackleton is buried and Cape Horn. Here are some pictures of my adventure. If you click on individual pictures they will enlarge and you can see how beautiful it is there. If anyone at HCPL wants to see all of my pictures let me know and I will bring my album in.