Cape Town Mission Field 

    2 March 2019
    Day 448
Saturday


This morning we drove to Paarl to review the elders boarding there. It is about an hour and a half drive. So we decided to see some sights after traveling that far. We found a butterfly and nature reserve on the way. They had some fun critters, butterflies, a skeleton section showing skeletons of all kinds of South African animals, including a rhino. They also had a large collection of tarantula's from around the world. Including a very large one called a bird-catcher. They don't really catch birds, but they are very big. You can walk right in among many of the cages with the small animals, and birds, including a hut with Owl's. Sister Courtright invited a parrot to jump onto her finger in one of the enclosures. At which point he promptly bit her finger. She had to flip it off because he wasn't going to let go on his own.
We spent quite a while at the Paarl elders boarding. Elder Courtright fixed the front door curtain bracket and moved the floor stopper. We noted several things that need to be fixed or replaced. And we left them with a big cleaning list; including floors, ceilings, and the back yard. We also left them with some fruit that we picked up from a street vendor. We then stopped at the Spar store and purchased electricity for their meter that was running low. We grabbed a quick bite from the Spar store then headed for the Crocodile Farm on the south end of Paarl.
The farm had an impressive collection of poisonous snakes from South Africa and even included a Western Diamondback Rattler. The Black Mamba is the most feared in South Africa. I guess because it is also the fastest snake in the world and they are prolific here so they are the ones that most people get bitten by. They also had a spitting cobra. 
We went into the Crocodile Farm and there are about 300 large Crocodiles here. Many sleep under water and many sun themselves. The ones with their mouths open are cooling themselves off, its a ventilation thing. They also have a dive cage in a separate pool with an underground glass viewing panel where you can pay to get into the cage and feed 5 or 6 Crocodiles that they release into the pool.
Mudskipper, I finally realized they must've used these as the model for the Creature from the Black Lagoon

Meerkats always appear to be smiling



Black Mamba


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