I'm writing a script that is dependent on knowing the geometry type of the loaded shapefile.
but I've looked in the pyqgis cookbook and API and can't figure out how to call it. 
infact, I have trouble interpreting the API, so any light shed on that subject would be appreciated. 
Thank you
QgsGeometry has the method wkbType that returns what you want.
How to get shapefile geometry type in PyQGIS?