3,563 ft - Table Mountain Summit

Yesterday five friends and I climbed Table Mountain.  It was my first time scaling a mountain (I believe - parents, confirm this) and the most strenuous 1.5 hours of my life.  But first...

On Thursday, when I wrote about Cape Point, I skipped over our Monday through Wednesday activities, which were visiting the District 6 Museum, going to the SA National Gallery, and completing a "transportation exercise" conjured up by Vernon (our master/expert tour guide).

Day 4 (Monday 8.31): 

 On Monday we went to the District 6 Museum.  We learned the history of the demolished community and explored the various exhibits.  Above is a photo of a map laid out on the main floor of the building.  Visitors to the museum have labeled spaces where various families lived, making for a very thorough record.

Photos of residents printed on cloth hang around the 2nd floor of the museum.  It was small, but it started out as a 2-week exhibit in the 1990s and has been successful ever since - pretty impressive.

One exhibit was all about the barber shops and beauty salons of the 60s in District 6.  Here my roomie models one of the hair driers.  The middle picture in the row to her left is of our tour guide back then!  Got a sweet mushroom (what they call a bowl-cut) going on.

Another exhibit about children, complete with a hop scotch (hope I got that right) game that goes into the display box.  These cats are creative.  The mural in the background was bathed in light from  windows all around... really pretty.

The tower down the middle is made up of salvaged street signs from District 6.  Much of the museum was composed of salvaged debris from the demolition.

Day 5 (Tuesday 9.1)- Random Places on Brownlow, Kloof Nek, and Long St.:  

 

This is a photo of the cafe by our manor which I promised to post earlier.  They make delicious oven-fired pizza and drinks.  Have only been once for fear of spending too much rand.

 Here we see the choice nighttime hang-out of the group, Rafiki's.  They have a sweet pizza and beer (I mean soda) special and another which involves rump and prawn.  Haven't tried either yet, but I have three months...  Locals use it as a place to catch rugby games and at night they have dancing.  Though some nights it can be relaxed as well.  This was snapped on our way

Walking along Long Street, this gem was spotted.  The baby shirt reads "I Love Boobies."  Those Cape Townians have a sense of humor, eh?

The Carolines and I made our way through Company Gardens to the SA Portrait Gallery.  They had a sweet bronze exhibit and really interesting art from South African and UK artists, spanning centuries up to 2008.

OBAMA!  A flier from the Argus spotted whilst walking around downtown.  Our resident Canadian points.

Day 6 (Wednesday 9.2)- Public Transport Exercise
On Wednesday we were each assigned into teams chosen by Vernon to complete various public transport exercises. Some teams were made to take mini buses from Tamboerskloof or downtown to areas around Cape Town.  My team, however, only had to go from the Hiddingh Campus about a 15 min walk from home (where you find fine art, film, media, and drama studies) to Lower campus, then walk down Main Street in Rondebosch to a Woolworth's.  There, we were instructed to buy a bag of sour cream potato chips.  Simple enough, yet we managed to take a full four hours to do it.  On the plus side, our group was Team Zebra (pronounced zeh-brah).  If I figure out how to edit them, I will post the videos taken of this catastrophe adventure.

Thursday and Friday we made a trip to Cape Point (which I wrote about earlier) and started classes.  The first is a history survey course (for which Mandela's autobiography prepared me more than I expected) and the second is a course on the 21st Century Scramble for Africa, taught my Mama Lee herself.  The subject matter is pretty complicated... wish me luck.

FAST FORWARD TO...

Day 9 (9.5) - Hike up Table Mountain
We began our hike at the doorstep of Hillcrest.  The walk to the beginning of the trail at the base of the mountain alone took about 2 hours.  We went up Kloof at a steep incline the whole way, still on sidewalk up until this trail near the base which ended up being a 5 minute detour.  Finally we reached the main visitor's center at the base and they told us we had to walk another 2km up the road to get to the beginning of the gorge trail.  After some false starts, we were off!

Cut to an hour later.  I feel like my heart, lungs, and legs are going to explode.  The fear of passing out from exhaustion has never been so real.  The route we took isn't really a trail - there are no smooth parts of it.  Instead, it is like a giant staircase.  Imagine having to take stairs two at a time, sometimes on uneven footing, going up hundreds of feet vertically.  I was pretty glad we had gone during winter, because I think the hike during the summer would give me heat stroke.  About 30 minutes from the summit, we saw some graffiti which captured our sentiments perfectly:

Caroline was a beast.  She kept us at a pretty good pace, so that only about an hour and 15 minutes into the hike we were already near the top:

At least it was gorgeous. We had to hike around the side and up the back, so this was taken between the rock formations looking back (see below for reference, too).

Even so close to the summit, many a rest break was taken to avoid collapse.  Andrew is a LITTLE too excited.  I don't know how I had the strength to push the shutter on my camera.  Part of me was also very angry - I hate this hike, I hate my legs, I HATE TABLE MOUNTAIN, so luckily I didn't punch anyone in the face.  It did help that another hiked on the way down said "break a leg."

AT THE TOP!  I have never been so giddy.  Even though the temperature was probably around 40F, I was still in my shorts and shirt, sweating.  Then the wind started getting to us and we bundled up.

It was a relief to not see any more rocks to climb above us.  Level ground, FINALLY!

 Though it was cloudy, the sky was really gorgeous from the top.

Once we went around to the ocean side (Hout Bay I believe), it was even more evident how far we had gone.  From sea level to about 3500ft.  I'm really glad I went with experienced hikers and they could see how pumped I was to have made it.  Maybe some day I'll get to attempt 10,000ft or higher.

This is me being a fool on a bridge across the table top.  Again, I was delirious.

Many an epic photo was taken at the top.  The Atlantic Ocean sits in the background.

 

Victory dance by Caroline.  In the background you can see the cafe.  Yes, there is an eco-friendly restaurant at the top of Table Mountain.

 

As the sun set, it looked like a painting.

 

Looking out over Lion's Head peak (also a very hard climb which seems dwarfed by Table Mountain) and the city.  Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for three decades) can be seen.

The City Bowl and Table Bay as seen from the summit.  It was glorious.  Can't say I'd do it again, though.  Haha... maybe.

Rotate to the right a bit and you get a great view of Devil's Peak and the Tater Tot Mountains (not their actual name, but can't pronounce or spell it).

A shot of the cable car making its way down the mountain.  We took the last one down because hiking down would have been dangerous past sundown.

Victory!  The girls in green jump at the top of the mountain.  Another take below:

Then it was my turn to take some solo shots:

I was a bit too excited at this point.

As the sun set, we made our way to the cable car.

Goodbye, Table Mountain!  It's been a pleasure making your acquaintance.

The cable car comes real close to the rocks.  It was awesome!

The team!  Walking downhill after hiking was an effort.  Our joints were jumbled, making our legs like jello.  But we were oh so happy.  Look at those faces.

Anne-Marie, looking almost as excited as I am at the prospect of going to Disco Nights.  Look at that.  Or the Baxter Dance Festival.  Good times.

Our victory dinner was at Mexicano.  WARNING: Do not go here.  As Andrew said, "you can't do Mexican in Africa.  You just can't."  All the waiters were very emo and they even dared to give us ITALIAN MINTS with the check.  The food looked like they had Googled the recipes before serving it.  And our check took half an hour to receive.  Again, GOOD TIMES!

We were NOT happy campers.  Caroline was looking especially homicidal.

We decided that going to Cape to Cuba would have been a much better choice.  Check out the front of the building during the day and at night.  Complete with Cuban flags on either side and neon.  Mexican was a bad choice.

Overall, though, hiking Table Mountain was a great success!  Glad I was one of the first 6 from our year to do it.