August 25, 2007: Montagu and Cape Town, South Africa

I'm trying to write this on my laptop while we are driving down a dirt path of a road leading up into the mountains toward our next destination, Wolfberg. It's difficult to type let alone even stay sitting while 20 tons of steel bounces along the washboard road. I'm giving my laptop one month in these conditions. Forget the upcoming dust storms in Namibia.

It's time for the highlight reel or else I'm never going to catch up to date.

Other than great climbing and a corpse, what else was notable about Montagu? Ah yes, I gutted my first chicken in Montagu. It wasn't even a week into the trip and we had already gone feral. The campground owner, Stuart, made an offhand remark about wanting to get rid of some of his roosters, and George (super fit 60 year old who has climbed Denali and made an attempt on Everest) immediately piped up and said we would take care of that.

The chicken killers. L to R: Me, Sam, George, Dave, Charles, Steve

Three wrung necks and several down pillows worth of plucked feathers later, I found myself poised over a chicken like a surgeon, knife in hand. Luckily, one of the other fellows on the trip, Dave, has butchered a few chickens in his time, and he showed me what to do. Otherwise, I would have made some very bad decisions. Without going into the gory details, let's just say that there is a surprising amount of organic material inside a chicken. It all made for a quiet campground the following morning.

We returned to Muizenburg to make another attempt at Table Mountain, and the weather actually cooperated. After an early dawn start and an hour and a half hike up a trail that has lawsuit written all over it, we arrived at the start of a classic three-pitch climb.

Cape Town at dawn from the base of Table Mountain:

View from the base of Table Mountain looking up. Tram docking building is barely visible upper right:

View of the top portion of Table Mountain that has some of the rock climbing routes. The tram that carries people to the top is in the upper right:

View from the top of the first pitch:

Great holds and great views, although I must say that the best part about climbing Table Mountain is getting lunch and a beer from the cafe at the top.

Me at the top:

George at the top displaying complete disregard for the rules:

There is something delightfully bad-ass about clanking around with climbing gear, knowing that you had literally climbed Table Mountain from bottom to top, unlike the hordes of tourists who took the tram. That being said, I was sorely tempted to take the tram back down.

Charles, upper right of pic, climbing at Silvermines, near Table Mountain