playing hooky

So, the Boo loves his new preschool, but in some respects he's very much my child, i.e. he can't stand going to the same place day after day and needs regular breaks from the schedule.  Yesterday he asked to stay home and "do something fun" with me.  "Do something fun" is Boo-speak for get out of the house.  So what to do with the Boo?

There is wonderful blog Tim and I follow - Cape Town Daily Photo - and they recently posted about water taxi rides in the canals that connect to the Victoria and Albert Waterfront.  Since the Boo loves taxis and the Boo loves boats, I figured a little water taxi action might be just the mommy-and-me activity we were looking for.  So off we went.

It took a little maneuvering, but eventually we tracked down the water taxi going through the lock (there's no set schedule, but if you talk to the right person near the water route they can call one for you - good to know!) .  He made a special stop to pick up the Boo and I.  We then traveled through the canal to the Cape Town International Conference Center and back through the water lock and in to the Alfred and then Victoria basins of the harbour.  Paul at Cape Town Daily Photo has a link to the route plotted on Google Maps.



Above is the view of the high-priced real estate and accommodations to be found along the canal.  Below is the canal lock from the top (canal elevation) to the bottom (harbour elevation).



The Boo seemed to really enjoy the ride and got a kick out of all the seabirds along the route, many with nests and eggs in those nests.  Our taxi returned us to the Waterfront proper (a place we seem to constantly circle back to, we've been there 7 or 8 times since landing in Cape Town) where we were greeted by a very friendly seal (umm...I was a bit slow on the camera draw to capture that, but the Boo loved it!)



The Boo then hit me up for ice cream as we enjoyed the comings and goings on the Waterfront.  A successful mommy-and-Boo outing!