This past weekend was super eventful. Saturday a bunch of us went to the Old Biscuit Mill market. There was a lot of organic food and boutique type shops and vendors. There were also an unbelievable amount of hipsters who must have put a lot of effort into find their ironic fedoras to venture out of their coffee shops in order to check out all of the vintagy clothes and organic food. Seriously, I don’t know where all of these hipsters came from (well, probably from the underground music scene), but I honestly had not seen a single South African hipster before this day. It was quite a cultural experience. There was SO MUCH food and it all looked and smelled amazing. It was like heaven on earth. My roommate and I got ostrich burgers with guacamole, soo good. And then I bought some organic dark chocolate. Delicious. Okay, I’ll calm it down on my food obsession now.
Also at this market, one of the vendors confronted us about being ignorant Americans who think that Cape Town is a proper representation of the larger continent of Africa. (Cape Town is really westernized.) He told us that there is “no culture” in Cape Town because there is only culture in the rural parts of the country where women don’t wear tops. Obviously, I thought of Comparative Cultures and Politics and how we read so many course pack articles about how everything is culture and there is different culture everywhere. And how can someone claim that something isn’t a culture? … but what is the real meaning of “culture” anyway? Just kidding, I’m not going there again.
Later, we went to a bar called Fireman’s Arms near the rugby stadium to watch the match. Apparently this match was a big deal in deciding the rankings, so everyone was really excited. It was such a great sports watching atmosphere. We sat near some middle-aged rugby fans and they explained the game to us. I decided that my favorite player is Doppies La Grange. This decision was based exclusively on his name, obviously. Rugby is awesome. I like it because there is fairly continuous play, unlike American football and most of the athletes are really attractive. And it’s just brutal. The scrummaging is really strange though…
Later that night we made our way to an Irish pub called the Dubliner. We were told not to go there because of pick-pocketers and frequent cocaine dealings, but I’ve been there twice with no issues. When we walked in the house band was playing American Pie by Don Mclean. One of my friends took this as the cue to begin chanting “USA! USA! USA!” Everyone loved us instantly… classic Americans. It was a good time. And that was my Saturday night.
On Sunday I went up to Table Mountain. A few groups decided to go because it was a beautiful, sunny day. The group I was with decided to ride the cable cars up and then back hike down.
Once we got up, we walked around and took some pictures. After a while, my roommate Gina and I decided to start hiking down. We were told that there were a bunch of trails that led down the mountain, so we just looked at the map and chose a path that led to the exit. We began climbing down the rocks and ladders. I’m not sure how appropriate of an activity mountain hiking is for someone as klutzy as me… I scraped my knee pretty bad and almost launched myself off of the side of the mountain a couple of times. No big, no big. After a couple of hours, we came out at the main road, but we didn’t really know what direction to take to get back to the touristy area we were looking for. We ran into a South African jogger. He gave us new directions, which may or may not have been correct. We followed his directions over a dam and then came to another set of trails; two led to the place that he told us to go. In retrospect we should have realized that we didn’t need to go down any more trails… we should have just followed that road around. Anyway, we chose to venture down Skeleton’s Gorge. It was really awesome at first and the scenery kept changing dramatically quickly. We trekked through stoney mountains with giant rocks, which actually looked like a scene out of Lord of the Rings. But I didn’t see Gandalf anywhere. Then we trudged over a white sand beach that had creepy looking white boulders on it. I don’t understand how there was a beach there, but it was sweet. And then we found ourselves wandering through Jurassic Park-esque forests. Seriously, there was this barbed wire fence and it looked like just like the one that electrocuted the boy in the movie. We hadn’t seen any people in a while. It was getting dark. We had no idea how much longer it would be until we got to an exit. At this point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if a pterodactyl flew by. We had no choice but to find the humor in the situation. A lot of Swiss family Robinson and Bear Grylls jokes ensued. Eventually, we ran into another South African. He was chubby and was wearing cargo shorts and sporting a bucket hat. Priceless. He told us to just keep going down. We didn’t realize that this literally meant scaling down a waterfall. As we tried to figure out the safest way to get down this waterfall, we realized there wasn’t one. I clung to the face of a boulder; my water bottle fell out of my pocket. We watched it ricochet off of a branch and bounce from rock to rock and it plummeted down the falls. I hoped that my fate would not be the same. We slowly made our way down the slippery slope, holding roots and trying to find footholds in the side of the rock. It was so ridiculous. Once we made it down safely, we continued to basically crab walk down the boulders because it was pretty necessary to use hand and feet to find safe grips so we wouldn’t fall. Crab walking… so kindergarten gym class (minus the mountain part). Definitely a step up from playing with the giant parachute. We climbed for another 45 minutes or so, and then came out to a path. Bloody, dirty, and wet we searched through the dusk for a person or signs of civilization. We finally saw a security guard who called us a cab. I felt like a little kid lost on a field trip. It turns out that we came down on the opposite side of the mountain, so the cab ride was kind of long. But it was the best 100 rand I’ve ever spent.
Once we got back, we both felt really weak from hours of hiking. I had some of the organic chocolate that I bought the day before. Turns out that mountain climbing and dementor attacks are not the same because the chocolate had pretty much no effect. Today we woke up sore. What a crazy adventure.
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