Table Mountain from town. Click on it to view the large size and see where the lower cable station - outlined in red - lies on the mountain.
Table Mountain is a beautiful land
mass, but it is also a tourist spot. There is a cable car – made
in Switzerland – that will take you from the lower parking lot to
the top of the mountain where you can stand and gaze out over all of
Cape Town, Table Bay and the Atlantic Ocean or into a milk bottle of
fog, depending on the weather. You can also eat at a cafe atop the
mountain, buy some souvenirs and then take the large cable car back
down the mountain. Or, you can walk.
I wanted to walk. I had seen people
coming down on foot when I'd first visited Table Mountain's parking
lot last Sunday. It was now a week later and I had my heart set on
going up the path.
I walked from one end of the parking
lot to the other but I could not find anything that looked like a
footpath entrance. Finally, I approached two Table Mountain
employees in bright green sweatshirts standing near the ticket
booths. They informed me that the path entrance was a 15-minute walk
(about a mile) down the paved road and one of them quite adamantly,
after giving me quite the evil eye, insisted that I couldn't climb
the path in “those shoes.” I informed her that I was quite
capable of climbing in my hiking boots and headed down the road. I
didn't fully believe them because I had seen people descending a path
directly below the cable car and because of the girl's rudeness, but
I figured it was worth a try. Road along Table Mountain.
Sure enough, just under 15 minutes down
the road, I found the path entrance, marked with a small restroom
building. I topped off my water bottles and began the climb. The
path quickly became rocky and when it joined with another path I
wondered if I had just climbed off the water run-off instead of a
footpath. It's something I've been known to do before.
The walk was beautiful and the
beginning was a steady even climb over crushed rock and red soil.
Beautiful and delicious smelling flowers lined the path. The day was
overcast, warm with a heavy breeze. Perfect weather for walking
outside. I was glad to be wearing a dress as its billowing in the
breeze kept me pleasantly cool. I met others, people going up at a
faster pace than me, people coming down. Everyone was friendly. I
had packed water, a can of almonds and a citenge in my shoulder bag
(as well as some souvenirs and presents I'd picked up earlier in the
day). Every 20 minutes or so, I would stop for water and almonds,
laying out my citenge on a rock so as not to get Munchkinhead's dress
dirty. Sweat washes out, that African red dirt is resilient. Starting the climb.
The path turned steeper, large
boulder-like rocks instead of crushed stone. The climb became more
intense and more of an actual climb using hands and arms to pull my
body up the next step as the path wound through the gorge. I paused
after a long stretch of steep large rocks, near a good sitting place,
and went to my bag for my citenge. It wasn't there! I'd forgotten
to pick it up after my last stop 15-minutes back down the hill. At
first I thought, “oh well, that's gone” and continued on a few
more feet. Then I paused. 15 minutes – 30 round trip – was not
much in the scheme of this adventure and it was one of my favorite
citenges from Zambia, depicting a village scene with men smoking
around the fire and women nursing their babies. I also was beginning
to wonder if I could climb back down these massive boulders I'd been
pulling myself over. So I turned around and headed down. The path up, and down, and up again.
People on their way up assured me my
citenge was where I had left it. One group even apologized for not
picking it up. That was sweet of them to even consider it. Going
down was much harder than
going up. I often had to sit on the rocks and scoot until my foot
could reach the next boulder below. A gentleman
in bare feet scampered past me, going up at a seemingly unbelievable
pace. I reached my previous resting place and found my citenge.
This time, going up only took 10 minutes. Citenge, right where I left it.
The
climb became even steeper after that and the views ever more
breathtaking. Notes began to appear on the stones, messages left by
previous climbers for others following. “Don't give up now.”
“You're almost there.” The bare-footed gentleman came scampering
back down past me. A good sign; I must be getting close. Another
group came past going down, “only 35 more minutes to the top!”
Thirty-five minutes later, I was still in the middle of the path, but
had caught up to a local couple I'd passed going back for my citenge.
We had ascended into the mist that shrouded the top of the mountain.
My glasses were fogging up constantly. The fog became thicker and
the air colder. I was glad
I'd gone back for my citenge as I wrapped around me like a shall.
The three of us continued on
together. Showing off the view.
Finally,
the ground flattened around us and a large stone pedestal with a map
rose up, a beacon in the mist. We checked the map, but it didn't
match the paths available. We headed on the path that continued
going up. Timber poles with chains connecting them guided us up a
steep slate route, providing needed handles. Suddenly, there were
other people. People who had come up on the cable car and were
gleefully taking pictures on top of Table Mountain. We'd made it.
I'd done it!
Top of Table Mountain
I
looked around. It looked like Daly City. You couldn't see more than
5 feet in any direction. No spectacular views from here, those had
all been had on the mountainside. I
didn't care; I'd climbed Table Mountain.
I met a lot of people from many different places at Table Mountain. Many of them said something about my shoes, but only the two Indians flat-out said “you can't.” The lady at the lower cable station and a guy sitting on a boulder on the path, smoking!, who told me I needed to take off my shoes to keep going. Because climbing a mountain in socks would be such a good idea. They'll never know I made it to the top, but I know, and I know my motto remains true, “anything you can do, I can do in heels.”
No comments:
Post a Comment