Monday started bright and sunny with no sign of bad weather, so it was time for Table Mountain.
Rick met me for breakfast and confirmed our hiking plans. A guy named Yoann from France, who ended up being a pretty good friend in South Africa, also wanted to go. So now we were three.
To fully appreciate the mountain we wanted to climb up one side, traverse across the top, and descend on the far side. I drove to the end point and we took a taxi to Kirstenbosch where we had been the day before. After looking through the gardens one more time and talking to a friend of Yoann's from Malta we started up the path ominously called Skeleton Gorge.
What a path. Beside climbing with ropes, chains and ladders, for part of the way we actually hiked up rocks in the middle of a river. Very beautiful. Eventually we broke out of the trees and after a short series of switchbacks and flat traverses we were standing at MacClear's Beacon, the highest point on Table Mountain.
We met a German named Yan who hiked with us across the mountain and down the other side. Very interesting group - America, France, Germany and The Netherlands all in South Africa hiking and having a blast.
Our descent was a steep path called Platteklip Gorge, and the immediate sight was breathtaking:
We saw some interesting critters on the way down, human and otherwise, including this rodent who was anything but happy to see us:
At the bottom we climbed back into the car victoriously and went back to the hostel for some well deserved showers and some rest.
Later in the evening I met Yoann and two girls, Alyssia from Quebec and Angie from New Caledonia, for drinks and food at a close by fancy (but cheap!) burger shop called Hudson's. We stayed for awhile and after several drinks decided we needed - what else? - more drinks.
The venue of choice was a wine bar called Publik. We invited another girl Jessie from British Columbia to join and had a few bottles of wine. Yoann is a wine expert, living deep in wine country in Southern France, so it was pretty entertaining watching him banter with the guys behind the bar. Meanwhile I absorbed the knowledge more directly from my glass and enjoyed a local delicacy not unlike beef jerky but much better - small pieces of dried beef called Biltong.
When we were thoroughly filled up with wine and beef we meandered our way through the streets back to the hostel. We stopped at a KFC on the way - because why not? - and it was pretty damn good.
All in all a great day.
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