Table Mountain

I hope that you are all enjoying your 4th of July celebrations. Our hostel is doing so with a beer pong tournament. Ah well. If only it was ping pong.

Our personal celebration involved hiking to the top of Table Mountain, the peak that looms over Cape Town. If you're unfamiliar, think a much higher, flatter version of Sugar Loaf in Rio or the Santa Monica mountains in LA (if you swapped them with Century City).

The trail started in the botanical gardens, which were easily the best that I've experienced. Really lovely stuff. I could have spent the entire day just there and if I lived here I'd be a regular visitor. As it was, we took our time heading to the base of the trail and wandered through the gardens for an hour or so.

The hike itself took us about 3 hours, the first half of which was spent climbing up a waterfall, albeit one with a very low water flow. The trail is actually well-maintained and alternates between steps and rocks, though this is not to indicate there was any shortage of rocks to scramble over. It made for a long an exhausting day, but also a myriad of spectacular views. Shortly after peaking the waterfall portion, the trail opens to the air and we beheld beautiful vistas of the Cape of Good Hope and the Atlantic Ocean. Every few feet of the trail presented a new vantage point and it was hard to keep a good pace going. The trail wound its way through a variety of cactus and scrub brush, all very beautiful itself.

All of this would have made for a terrific day , but there was more to come. When we peaked the mountain itself, we saw on the far side a nearly 180 degree view of Cape Town and its surrounds. The city itself is lovely from above, but the view extended out onto Robben Island (if you're unfamilar, a bit like Alcatraz, an island prison and Nelson Mandela's very same for 27 years) and the bay sparkling in the sun.

There's actually a funicular that runs from the city up to the top, and boatloads of tourists take that way up the mountain. To our benefit, the peak is about a 45 minute walk from it, so most of the day visitors didn't wander our way (maybe a couple of dozen did) and we were able to enjoy a nice quite lunch on the peak. The walk back to the funicular (the trail we took is very hard to descend and probably not much fun in a pair of sneakers with the treads worn off) was also spectacular and at one point the cliffs fall off straight down nearly to the city level. We had a bit of fun leaning our heads over the ledge, but it blew my mind a little to take in the entirety of 3400 feet all at once.

It's hard to rank all of the great things we've experienced here so far. They all have been incredible in their own right. This one was another such experience. If you are ever in Cape Town, I'd highly recommend doing the hike. It's a bit strenuous, but you can do it in casual gear and the views are better knowing that you earned them.

All in all, Cape Town has been great and is a city worth visiting on its own. The only one in SA, I'd say, though we didn't make it out to Durban and maybe that's the only other one.

Tomorrow we're off to the Southern tip of Africa, hopefully we'll see some penguins and maybe some sharks (we may go Shark Cage Diving, but we didn't book so it might not come off). Tuesday we do some wine tasting, Wednesday we undertake the day long drive back to Jo'Burg!

Happy 4th of July everyone!