On day 2 I got out of bed at around 8am and got dressed in my work out shorts, sports bra and tennis shoes. I grabbed a quick breakfast on the ship and met up with a group of friends. I've realized that I really prefer to travel in smaller groups…and this day was an example of why. Of the group I was supposed to meet up with, one 2 of us were on time. So, after tracking down the other group members and waiting for them to get ready, we got off the ship about an hour later than planned. Then, those who had been late missed breakfast so we needed to stop and get them something to eat along the way. Like I've said in previous blogs, I've realized that there are bigger issues in the world, so it wasn't too much of a downer on the day, but it was annoying.
So, we ended up getting to our destination of Table Mountain only about two hours later than originally planned. Table mountain is this really awesome mountain placed right in the center of the city. The top of it is flat allowing you to walk around and get an awesome 360 degree view of the city. The reason we wanted to get there early was because we wanted to climb to the top and climb before it got too hot out. Well, that didn't work out…but we were going anyways. We started climbing at around 11:30 am, right when the sun starts to peak!
I've done a lot of hiking in my day. Pretty much every weekend during my gap-year in Israel my friends and I would head off with a tent towards some awesome hike we'd heard about…so I felt ready for this. I'd been told this was a tough hike, but still, I maintained that I would be fine with all of my experience. So, we started hiking, and by hiking I mean climbing giant stone "stair" after stair. When I say stair I don't mean the type you're used to going up at home…these were just giant stones laid one after another in a straight up direction that we treated as stairs. If you've ever been to Israel and climbed the snake path of Masada, you know what it's like to climb a ton of stairs. Well, the last time I climbed the snake path of Masada I decided to book it and it only took about 30 minutes. This hike had an expected hike time of 2 hours! It was reallllly tough. Everytime we found shade on the way up (which was not often) we stopped for a water and air break.
The entire way up we waved hi to the people coming down. Everyone was very friendly and we would usually exchange quick greetings. At one point, after what I had thought had been a while of hiking, we stopped to talk to two guys currently in the University—one was American and studying abroad, and one South African. We asked them how much more they had and the South African laughed and said you don't want to know…just keep going! We talked to them for about 10 minutes, partially because they were interesting and funny, partially because they were an excuse to take a break. When it came time to say good-bye we just kept on going.
An hour later we were much closer to the top. As we neared the end I saw a man walking with his dog…when I say walking with his dog I mean literally holding his dog and walking. He told me that his dog was getting old and couldn't do the hike on his own anymore, but that they used to do it together all the time, so this time he would just hold him…talk about man's best friend! This really warmed my heart and made me think of my old dog, Saffy who used sleep in my bed every-night and growl and climb over me anytime someone walked into my room and posed a threat. At one point we passed a man who stopped to play some music on the side of the mountain, I told him he played beautifully and he promised me he would play on the top of the mountain as well.
We were about 5 minutes from the top and hadn't stopped for a long time so we stopped for a quick water break. As we did we saw a man with no shirt running up the mountain. As I looked closer I realized that it was a friend from the ship named Steve! He stopped for a second and told us that the momentum of running made it easier for him and that he'd been running the whole time!!!!! In the last 5 minute stretch there was a long stretch of non-stop upward stairs…when you get to the top though, you're done. Well, as I was about half way up that stretch of stairs a group of rowdy South Africans who had just started making their way down stopped and looked at us and one was singing loudly she'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes. Well, I looked at him and jumped right in and started dancing and singing along with him and his friends and my friends formed a circle of clapping around us. The look on his face was a combination of complete shock and excitedness. We sang for about a minute and then stopped, he looked at me and told me he was surprised how easily I joined in, shock my hand and we parted ways. I told my friends that that was the best local interaction I'd had so far. It was so funny!!
We finally reached the top and it was one of the best feelings of accomplishment. My legs no longer felt like they were going to fall out of their sockets and break off, my body no longer felt like it was going to spontaneously combust from all the heat, and my heart no longer felt like it was going to burst out of my chest as it beat insanely fast….now I was just happy. It's funny how quickly your body can change all due to feelings. We got to the top and let our a sigh of accomplishment. We cheered, and ran around like little kids that you would never know had just climbed a mountain. Three of us, myself, Eshley and Betsy, made our way over to a side of the top of the mountain that not many people were walking around. The top of the mountain is huge and actually takes about three hours to cover. Well, we walked about 30 minutes towards one side. There is not a place on that table top that you can't see an incredible view. We reached a nice little rock and edge with a beaaaaautiful view and decided to stop for some refreshments and snacks that we had packed. We must have sat there for about an hour just looking out and talking and laughing. Then, we took some pictures of us on the edge looking out. We made our way back to the side of the top of the mountain where there is a bathroom and little shop and restaurant.
We had also been traveling with our friend Shane who wanted to do his own thing when we got to the top of the mountain. Well, the problem with SAS is that we don't have cell phones to call each other, and once we'd made our way back towards the populated area, we realized we had no idea where he was. We ran into lots of other SASers and asked if they'd seen him and they told us that he'd been looking around for us for a while. After searching for another 30 minutes we decided that our best chance of finding him would be to take the gondola (like we'd planned) down to the bottom of the mountain. We got down to the bottom and couldn't find him after looking around for a while. It was a pretty crazy feeling because at home I would never just "lose" a friend on the top of a mountain, we would call each other and find each other in a few minutes. Well, we had no way of contacting each other, and we know Shane is a big boy and must have found another group to head back with, so we were on our way.
We got back to the ship at around 5pm and planned to leave again for our evening plans at 5:30. So, we all took super, super quick showers and jumped right off the ship again. Myself, Eshley, Betsy, Steve and Keith shared a cab to the rugby stadium to see a rugby match! We got to the box office JUST as it was closing and each bought some last minute tickets that happened to be great seats right in the front. We got inside just as the game was starting and ran into another group of SASers who were sitting right around where we were supposed to sit. We sat down and cheered and pretended like we knew what was going on. At one point I asked a local behind me to explain the game and he tried to tell me all about it and their leagues and how it works. I did learn a lot and I've come to the conclusion that rugby is a much rougher, much more dangerous, much "manlier" version of American football. Seriously, these guys run around and tackle each other just like American football…the only differences are that they don't have padding all over them and they don't stop the game between each play, they just keep going. It was pretty crazy to see and I really enjoyed cheering along with all of the locals and watching a good old sporting event.
After the game we happened to run into Shane, who we'd lost earlier, and a group he was with. I've learned that things just tend to work out here ya know? We went with that group to a restaurant called Debonnaires. This place was known for it's "Triple decker pizza". This pizza was a triple decker, it had three layers, and it was awesome!!!! After the pizza we all headed over to Long Street, a popular going out street in Cape Town, to see what Saturday night was like in Cape Town. We spent the night going from bar to bar and even going into a club at one point. We met people from all of the world, lots of locals, some French people, some Swiss…etc. It was a fun night of drinking and hanging out with relatively new friends (of a month and a half), and really new friends from that night.
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