Cape Town Capers Part 2
Trip Start
May 29, 2007
1
39
41
Trip End
Jul 18, 2007
Cape Town,
South Africa
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
To avoid the morning rush hour traffic, we left at 9:30. A short half-hour later we safely made it to the table mountain base.
There are two ways to make it to the top of Table Mountain. The first is to ride up the cable car which has a hefty $20 price tag. The other is to climb the mountain. Naturally, being the two burly man-hikers that we are, Aaron and I opted to climb - and a rough climb it was.
The hike was supposed to take 2.5 hours. We made it up in 1.5 hours, so we ascended swiftly. Wow I am out of shape. I felt like I had an anvil pressing against my chest. Good thing in a few short days I can return to - what is it called - oh yeah exercising.
At any rate, once on top, we hiked around to the different points. These points resulted sights of Lion's Head, Devil's peak, Robin's Island (where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned) and the Saddle - all beautiful I might add.
The vigorous accent depleted the majority of our hiking energy. Thus, we opted to pay the $6 one-way ticket fee to ride the cable car down. I guess they reward you for hiking up considering the one-way ticket down is less then half of the round trip ticket price.
Once down, we made for the coast. This was an experience of a lifetime. The road we followed took us all the way around the southwestern cape of the country. At times we were winding about the green-covered mountains, and at others I could have jumped off the motorcycle and into the ocean. Along the way, we must have stopped 20 times to take advantage of Kodak moments. Fantastic!
The views were breathtaking. The ocean was a marvelous blue and the various hills and mountains emitted a warm green welcome to our cameras. Oh, and the weather was perfect! It was hot enough that is wasn't cold and cold enough that is wasn't hot. Did that make sense?
At dusk, we found ourselves at Simon's Beach. This area is home to a very large African penguin population. The penguins put on a wonderful show for us. They pranced around the beach in the clumsy fashion that wingless-tuxedo birds do; swimming, dancing, and jumping about playfully. Twenty five minutes later we began the journey back to Claire and Gareth's.
The pictures from the day were shared over diner and then it was off to bed. What an exhausting day. It was incredible!
The journey is still unfolding. More to come.
