Cape Peninsula, South Africa, September 29, 2005 — If you come to Africa to see game, you go to Kruger or someplace. But that doesn't mean you have to stick to whales and penguins here. Especially since an enterprising soul put a small park right in suburbia.

My friend Mags still isn't feeling well so a friend picks me up, drops me at another friend's place and that friend's driver drops me off at Solole Game Reserve.

The Cape Buffalo, as you might imagine from

the name, is indigenous to the Cape but has disappeared from here. They have been reintroduced here by having them nursed by disease-free cows to get disease-free buffalo calves. The picture below shows babies.

I get to the park and am lucky to get the last seat on a ride through the small park. We see ostrich, bontebok (including a week-old baby), springbok, red hartebeest, eland, the promised buffalo including two babies. They have a black Rhino but you have to go to see him on a night ride.

I enjoy the ride. I have a snack and coffee while waiting for my ride back to my friend's house. We go for lunch to a restaurant and have liver and onions.

As if a game ride didn't make it an African enough day, I get to see Miriam Makeba tonight. She's making a worldwide farewell tour. Unfortunately my host, who scored the tickets, is not up to the event. But the friends network is sending someone to pick me up and take me to the Cape Town City Hall where the concert is to be held.

The friend who is taking me has arranged to take two other people and to meet two others and to pick up four more tickets. She picks me up on her way home from working (she's a physical therapist) and takes me to her house where we meet the other two.

At the City Hall we park and get ourselves organized. We are treated to an amazing first act with a pennywhistle group playing Mozart with an orchestra. Amazing. When the group does some of their more traditional pennywhistle numbers their dancing is incredible. Apparently this is a tradition from the street where groups use the inexpensive whistles to make fantastic music.

Miriam Makeba sings with the orchestra, with her regular group and completely without accompaniment during parts of it. She does the famous click song where a few phrases exercise all the click sounds of Xhosa.

It's a great time and it's interesting watching the diverse crowd watching the performance.