The sting of feeling 25 and turning 40 is greatly diminished by having an amazing sister like mine.

My sister Heather, who married a man from South Africa in 2000, gave me perhaps the most spectacular trip that anyone could ever imagine for my 40th birthday this year.

THANK YOU HEATHER!!!

She planned out everything and took care of everything to make for perhaps the best two-week period possible for anyone.

Allow me to elaborate...

Sept. 16, my girlfriend Cookiey and I flew to London, where Heather lives with her husband Sol and her two children.

We arrived early Monday Sept. 17 at Heathrow, where after a ridiculously long wait at customs, we were met by a driver and taken to Heather's gorgeous home.

After lunch with Heather, Cookiey and I took a bus tour of London in one of those double-decker British buses.

That evening I got to see my niece and nephew and spend rare

Me in front of Big Ben

quality time with them. Then Heather and I stayed up late catching up. I regret that I took no pictures of Heather's house nor the kids...

After breakfast Tuesday Sept. 18, Cookiey and I took the London subway (Tube) to the Tower of London, and  a river boat tour of the Thames.

Afterward, Heather arranged for a doctor and shots for hepatitis and tuberculosis, and malaria pills too for our trip to South Africa.

That evening, we boarded a plane to Cape Town, South Africa, where, after a 13-hour flight, we arrived early Wednesday Sept. 19.

We were met at the airport by Joe, who runs the staff at Sol's gorgeous estate in Hout Bay, about a 40-minute drive from Cape Town. Joe, an American ex-patriot well versed in S. Africa for tourists, drove us to the estate -- Leeukoppie (Little Lion).

After a nice breakfast we had a chance to look around the estate and get a little rest before heading down to the stable for a horseback ride around the property.

View from Sol's back yard

Great views and wild mountain trails -- again, I regret no pictures from the horse ride.

After the horses I drove the right-sided steering wheel BMW back to the house & Joe grabbed a bottle of really good S. African Pinot Noir for Cookiey and I to take up a cable car to watch the sunset on Table Mountain. Then back to the

estate for the fantastic vegan meal Joe prepared for us.

Penguins at Boulders Beach

Thursday, Sept. 20, after another great breakfast we headed down the road  to Boulders Beach to see the penguins. Boulders Beach is on the colder Atlantic Ocean side of the Cape of Good Hope. The Indian Ocean side is where the warmer water beaches are located for swimming.

It was cool to see the occupied houses  right next door to the penguin colony (visible at the end of the video).

Joe then drove us to Cape Point Park, where we ate a nice meal before Cookiey and I hiked up to the Cape Point light house and it's gorgeous views over both oceans.

a standstill on a rural road.

I asked Joe, "What's up?" He answered, that baboons were probably slowing traffic. Sure enough, we came upon a whole bunch of baboons brazenly stopping traffic -- crossing the street, standing in the road and laying in front of cars.

My favorite part of this trip was the drive back to Leeukoppie. Traffic came to

Friday, Sept. 21, Joe drove us into Cape Town, to meet Brian, a South African of Indian descent whose family was relocated to a township outside of Cape Town in the early 1970s because of  Apartheid.

Brian is one of the tour guides who took Oprah Winfrey through the Townships for her TV special.

Under Apartheid laws, Brian explained, South Africans were divided into four categories: White People (including Jews), Indian People, Cape Coloured People (mix of white & Indian) and Blacks. Blacks he noted were the only ones not identified as people.

Indians and Cape Coloured people were also relocated to townships, but they had better land and housing than blacks. They also were still considered S. African citizens. Blacks became citizens of independent tribal homeland nations (surrounded entirely by S. Africa). As such they had pass books (think passports) which were required for travel outside of their homelands.

While most woman and children were moved to the tribal homelands, the men were housed in substandard dorms and shacks in the townships so they could do the menial jobs in the cities.

 Although Apartheid ended in 1994, and the government has promised housing for most relocated families -- an immediate result has been ever more people moving from the far off homelands into makeshift shacks in the townships in hope of finding work in the cities.

Sign outside District 6 Museum Cape Town

After visiting the District Six Museum, Brian took us into the largest black township outside of Cape Town -- where he did his best to emphasize the positive in a tremendously depressed area.

Businesses are operated out of old shipping containers, very few "homes" have electricity, and most that do have make-shift lines run from electric poles into their shacks. Bathrooms are outhouses and buckets, and street vendors sell chicken feet & heads (walkie talkies) as well as sheep heads (smileys) as a source of cheap meat.

Smileys for sale

One of the "success" stories is a woman who helped bring  some tour guides into the townships. She offered a room in her modest home as a bed & breakfast for tourists wanting the full township experience. She has been so successful that a second story is being added onto her home and she installed a flush toilet in the back of the building.

We also stopped to see a woman named Beauty Ngcukayitobi. Beauty started sewing classes after hearing Nelson Mandella say people need to empower themselves & not wait for government to get around to them.

"I was tired of seeing all these ladies sitting around on the street all day. I said I can teach them a skill, and then they won't be sitting around all day."

The day we came Beauty wasn't holding classes in her sheet metal residence (with holes in the roof) because she had no material, but she gave us makeshift business cards in case we wanted to donate money or material to her.

We also visited a nursery school where kids sang to us and we saw them laid out head-to-foot practically on top of each other for their nap. The nursery schools have barbed wire around them, we were told, because it is a common misconception amongst the uneducated that sex with a virgin cures AIDS.