March of the Penguin

There are three colonies of penguins in South Africa: on Robben Island , near the Cape of Good Hope and further east along the coast. They stink like bagoong (Filipino fermented shrimp paste), but if you can get past that they are actually quite cute:


You can get quite close to them, particularly at the Simon's Town site near the Cape of Good Hope. The penguins there seem quite habituated to people. This one got out of the water and, apparently unfazed by the paparazzi, began staggering up the beach:


It looked rather dazed and confused, and we weren't sure it knew where it was going, but then it headed straight for a bush -- and its spouse, in the nest:


And then, just like in the movies, it (you can't easily tell whether they are male or female) began regurgitating its dinner to feed its spouse, with a very loud noise. In fact, because of the noise, these were originally known as "jackass penguins," but in the new, ultra-politically-correct South Africa, that term has been banned and they are now called "African penguins."

Not quite as majestic as the ones in the movie, but a hell of a lot easier to see in the wild.