Day 42, Tuesday July 6th, Cape Town
Our internet dealings the day before had told us it would almost certainly rain on Tuesday, so we sadly pushed hiking back another day. As we slowly got moving late morning, Martin found us to say they were going to the mountain today and we could hitch a ride. Considering we could have spent quite a bit of money just getting there and back, we quickly agreed. Plus those kids really are a ton of fun.
The rain held off all day and we convinced Martin and Trish to climb the mountain with us instead of taking the cable car up. Martin agreed and Trish said nothing, so off we went. She grew to regret her silence.
I'm not going to lie, the hike was pretty difficult. Although I guess I haven't done anything more strenuous than walking for six weeks, so maybe I'm not the best source. It's about 1000 meters increase in elevation and the hike is more or less straight up the freaking mountain. I think Trish immediately regretted agreeing to such a strenuous time, made easier, for us at least, by the fact that Martin kept giving her an incredibly hard time about everything. And the two of us as well, when the moment struck him. Luckily we still found it all hilarious and there's no better person to have with you on a tough hike than someone who just talks non-stop.
It took about two hours to get to the top, and we were going along at a pretty good clip. It was freezing and windy at the top, but the views really were fantastic. And we saw some weird weird animal called a dassie. Very odd. And by very odd, I mean very ugly.
We got some hot drinks and, with it getting colder and the sun going down (and our legs aching), we made a group decision that it was okay to take the cable car down instead of hiking. It took about one minute to get down. It was so fast it was almost depressing. But the views were great and we took a bunch of funny photos for free while in line with two crazy Dutchmen (find them at beenthere.tv. I haven't been able to get to the site myself yet, so if they're as bad as I remember them, just tell me you couldn't find them).
We headed to the store to get more food and returned to the hostel for more domestic living. We caught the semi between Uruguay and the Netherlands at the hostel - the game was in Cape Town and we'd thought about going to the fan fest downtown for the atmosphere. Unfortunately, the ticket station was closed at our station and we headed back to the hostel. There we learned that you simply buy a ticket at the end of your trip...which is weird. By that point though, we'd already walked back to the hostel and resigned ourselves to being warm for the rest of the night so decided not to venture out. It was a fun game to watch, but I was pulling for Uruguay (okay mainly just Diego Forlan, my favorite non-US player from the very beginning of the tourney), so I was a little disappointed.
We were planning on hrading down the Cape peninsula the next day, with its charming fishing towns, penguin colony (seriously), and the Cape of Good Hope. We were probably going to have to pay a fortune in cabs since both the penguins and Cape are inaccessible by train, so were pretty excited when Martin and Trish invited us to tag along with them again.
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