Thursday July 8

I woke up earlier today, 9:30 and changed hostels. I liked the owners of the other one, though they had a big argument of some sort last night, but the beds were squeezed too close together and the mattress was weak. I don’t think my new mattress is much better, but I have more space. I walked around town looking for a hat, I have been the whole time I’ve been here to shade my eyes from the sun, but I still havn’t found the one. Maybe I will before I come home. I stopped at a couple bakeries and tasted the local goods. Then it was time to climb table mountain. It is cool walking around Cape town, you turn and see this massive rock looming above you. I started to head towards the beast at about 2pm, later than I shoulda started. It’s about a two hour hike up, and I was at least an hour from the trail. There is a road that winds up to the entrance, but that was out of my way, so I just walked toward the mountain. I was very fortunate to run into a dirt road where the city streets ended. My road said no unauthorized something or other, but the sign was small and not too intimidating, so I progressed. It worked well, I hit the road I was supposed to use close to where the trail started. My starting point wasn’t the main starting point, but it connect after a bit. I didn’t know which way to turn when I T’d into another trail. I tried left. I ran into someone walking towards, I asked which way was up, he said the way he was going. I walked with him, our trail ended at a cliff, we turned around. We connected with the correct trail, but failed to stay on it long. I think we were both in a rush and trusted our instincts too much. We saw a trail going up and assumed that was us. It probably wasn’t a trail, more of a dry creek bed or something. We lost our invented trail a couple times, but found other trail like paths. Again, we ended up looking at a vertical rock face. We tried to go around it, that failed, he was in more of a rush than I so he hurried back down to find the trail again, I rested, then followed suit. I continued to follow anything that looked like a path. I knew they were not the path, but I figured if I walked in the correct horizontal direction, I would hit the trail. This never happened. It seems the trail waits until the rocks are less steep to continue gaining elevation. So I got myself in a bit of a tough spot where I had no choice to descend back to the real trail, eventually I made it. I walked back to where I made my first wrong turn. I had a nice place to sit and watch the sunset halfway up the mountain. As the adrenaline left my body I gradually felt all the bumps and scrapes the mountain had given me. Table Mountain won today, but I will have my day.

It turns out it was a good choice to find a shortcut to table mountain, the walk back was long. I had dinner at a west African restaurant, they overcharged me. I now have beef with west Africa. I got back to hostel and showered and am debating going out, but I don’t think I will, I am excited to sleep.