Blogs from Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa, Africa

Day 1 in Africa was a big success for the Atkins brothers. We’re already using local terms like tomato sauce (ketchup), cheers, and servilletes (napkins) to blend in like locals. We’re going to interweave and combo this entry since Brady really wants to write about his encounter with the penguins at Boulder Beach (can you blame me? –brady). I (Josh) woke up at 430 AM amped and ready to go, but was a considerate older brother and let Brady sleep in til 7. The city is amazing, the weather perfect, and the scenery nothing like I’ve ever seen before. We started out going to a cool breakfast/coffee café(R cafe) a few blocks from the hotel (thanks tripadvisor), then walked over to the Company Gardens. It’s a great shaded park that butts right up to the House ... read more

Hey Everyone, just wanted to let you know we made it our hotel in Cape Town. Looks like it should be a really great two weeks. The hotel is awesome, has two bathrooms, a jacuzzi bathtub in the room, living room and a kitchenette. We're really going to rough it here. Well, hopefully we can post plenty of pictures during the next few days. But it's almost 11 PM here and after 24 hours of flying I think we're going to call it a night. Priority one tomorrow may be finding African plug adapters to keep our electronics going for more than a few days. Until tomorrow, Josh & Brady... read more

Apologies for not posting pics sooner, we don't always pick up wifi in our room and most evenings we've passed out before rallying ourselves to hunt down more consistent wireless (we've also been listening to Nelson Mandela's autobiography, A Long Walk to Freedom at night). We also seem to be thwarted whenever we make plans to work on the blog. The first night, our local metro train back from Simon's Town broke down (and we eventually proceeded to break out of the train with about 70 other local commuters to catch another train), and the second night we ended up having to track down Visa so they would give us our card access back. I don't know about you, but i'd rather hop a train than be put on hold for eternity :P As many of ... read more

Despite lack of photographic proof, we're here safe and sound. long flights and overpriced airport coffee have left us feeling jetlagged. Copenhagen 7-11 served only fair trade organic coffee - cool beans in our books! That actually led us to a questioning conversation last night - what is fair trade? who does the certification? how do the standards vary by region? It's the long weekend, so our first choice of hostel (a community service organization with a soup kitchen downstairs and several local outreach programs) was booked (good for them!), which means we ended up at a party town hostel with a DJ and a bbq lady selling hotdogs on the roof right above our room. People here seems rather nice though, and we're staying in the heart of the city for less than $25 dollars ... read more

March 16, 2013 (Cape Town, RSA) - This is the 43rd National Congress of the Ophthalmological Society of South Africa and is being held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre – a very nice facility in downtown Cape Town. The program includes sessions for ophthalmologists (lectures and posters), mangers, optometrists, ophthalmic assistants and ophthalmic nurses. There is an international panel of speakers from Canada (Steve Ashinoff), England (Geoff Rose, John Salmon, Susan Downes, Frank Larkin) and the US (Janet Davis). The ophthalmologists program included 11 sessions, 3 symposia (femtolaser cataract surgery, excimer laser surgery, patient satisfaction cataract surgery) and 5 workshops (Wavelight workshop; Oculus Pentacam; Retinal Diseases; AMD and VEGF agents). South Africa has about 340 ophthalmologists and many attendees/participants are from other areas of Afri... read more

March 15, 2013 (Cape Town, RSA) We speak (and sign) of windy and variable weather conditions in Oklahoma, but I suspect Cape Town could give us a run for the money. We've had highly variable weather conditions here - most of it quite pleasant, but very different each day. Day one we had the south easter winds blowing. We went on a tour of the peninsula and getting out to get a view off one of the cliffs, a gust of wind blew the glasses off one of our colleagues and blew them from the car over the cliff never to be found. Day two was more ideal - clear blue skies, calm and clear, but very warm. Today was overcast, foggy, dew on the ground and misting on and off in the mid day. The ... read more

March 14, 2013 (Cape Town, RSA) A little more about the early morning walk. Dr. Pons is an avid outdoorsman with an eclectic knowledge of the environment around us: flora, fauna, history and the geography of the Cape. Morning walks with him are a great learning experience for us. He took us through the area around his father-in-laws house that has many vineyards on the hillsides - all in full harvest. We sampled a few very sweet grapes on our trek. It included a spectacular sunrise view of a historic Dutch farm laid out with a long promenade entrance with a boulevard of oaks lining the driveway opening to this classic Dutch white washed farmhouse. I took a GoPro camera attached to a chest harness that I wore, and made my first time-lapse movie of the ... read more