Even though we slept in dorm beds & I was woken by an alarm at 4am, it was an incredible sleep!
We had a buffet breakfast at Ashanti, checked out of our rooms & solidified plans with Simon & Leah to climb Table Mountain today.
The weather in Cape Town can be unpredictable, so we're not surprised when the sun comes out, despite the weather report predicting gloomy clouds & rain.
We are a little bit worried that the sun won't be hot enough or persistent enough to melt the clouds away at the top. We see them blowing back & forth, funneling down through the gorge & looking eerily like something in the land of Mordor from Lord of the Rings.
Once we get to the top, our suspicions are confirmed, it's totally white with thick clouds.
We spend a good hour carefully walking along the top trying to find the highest point or any location that provides a look out.
At the highest point we sit down & share cheese with German bread. A bread that Leah & Simon (who are from Germany) introduced us to in Namibia. It's densely packed full of seeds with only a small amount of flour.
After refuelling we walk back along the top, the way we came & locate the cable car. It's really very cold now & we get a coffee inside the cafe before making our way down. The cable car is really cool! It's very large & round with a large person capacity. I estimate there was about 20 people in there, the front is open windows & the rest of the sides are glass. As the cable car starts to move down the mountain, the floor starts to rotate around, ensuring everyone gets a good view. The ride lasts a few short minutes & then we touch back down the mountain where we started our walk.
Shortly after I started to wake up fully, around 6am, i could hear girly screaming from outside our dorm room. The Hostel's tabby cat had been hunting overnight and left a mouse near the verandah door. I felt sorry for the poor creature, it looked like the cat had done surgery on it & Im pretty sure it had a kidney lying next to it.
We had a buffet breakfast at Ashanti, checked out of our rooms & solidified plans with Simon & Leah to climb Table Mountain today.
The weather in Cape Town can be unpredictable, so we're not surprised when the sun comes out, despite the weather report predicting gloomy clouds & rain.
By 10am we have caught a taxi up to the starting point of Platteklip Gorge.
It's an estimated time of 2.5 hours to hike up, we manage it in 1 hour & 45 minutes with a few breaks for photos. The hike is really nice, full of plants. Table mountain has a really cool eco system with a high diversity of rare & endemic flora. Today the flora found on the Table Mountain Range has the highest concentration of rare flora of any continent found in the world. here's a crazy fact, there is more different types of flora found on the Table Mountain Range than in the whole of the UK.
It's an estimated time of 2.5 hours to hike up, we manage it in 1 hour & 45 minutes with a few breaks for photos. The hike is really nice, full of plants. Table mountain has a really cool eco system with a high diversity of rare & endemic flora. Today the flora found on the Table Mountain Range has the highest concentration of rare flora of any continent found in the world. here's a crazy fact, there is more different types of flora found on the Table Mountain Range than in the whole of the UK.
We are a little bit worried that the sun won't be hot enough or persistent enough to melt the clouds away at the top. We see them blowing back & forth, funneling down through the gorge & looking eerily like something in the land of Mordor from Lord of the Rings.
Once we get to the top, our suspicions are confirmed, it's totally white with thick clouds.
We spend a good hour carefully walking along the top trying to find the highest point or any location that provides a look out.
At the highest point we sit down & share cheese with German bread. A bread that Leah & Simon (who are from Germany) introduced us to in Namibia. It's densely packed full of seeds with only a small amount of flour.
After refuelling we walk back along the top, the way we came & locate the cable car. It's really very cold now & we get a coffee inside the cafe before making our way down. The cable car is really cool! It's very large & round with a large person capacity. I estimate there was about 20 people in there, the front is open windows & the rest of the sides are glass. As the cable car starts to move down the mountain, the floor starts to rotate around, ensuring everyone gets a good view. The ride lasts a few short minutes & then we touch back down the mountain where we started our walk.
From this point it's only a few more downhill kilometres so we continue on foot towards Ashanti.
Once back at Ashanti it's nearly 4pm! We grab our bags & go to leave before bumping into Jurumba, Joseph & Steven 1 more time.
Jurumba looks very stressed & has spent all day at the office. A girl from our tour who left halfway, has written a complaint email to ATC about Jurumba, Joseph & Steven, complaining about various things. To be honest, Tom & I are not surprised. At Victoria Falls this particular girl spent some time next to the pool with our good friends Jess & Ryan, whinging about her trip. Jess later queried some of the things she had said with me, all of which was a total lie or huge over-dramatisation.
We didn't particularly like this girl, nor did any of our friends on the tour because of how negative, shallow & rude towards cultural & traditional practices she could be.
Thankfully, over the past 6 weeks of tour, we've kept a list of positive & negative things as feedback to give ATC at the end. Yesterday I spent nearly 3 hours turning these dot points into a very detailed email. One dot point from Vic falls was to mention this potential situation of a complaint email. At the time of writing the email, I pondered even mentioning it, I'm glad I did now!
Big companies need truthful feedback about the negative & positive & People need to really be careful about negative emails & realise the impact it can have on someone's livelihood & future.
I mentioned my big email to Jurumba & said that Tom & myself had said a lot of positive things & not to worry. We invited them out for beers & dinner later as well, if they felt up to it.
Finally it was time to check into our Air BnB. Once again, Tom has done a phenomenal job finding & booking us the perfect place to stay.
It's a 500 metre walk from Ashanti & is very central.
It's situated on top of an Italian restaurant called Nona Lisa & has balcony views of Table Mountain.
When we arrive, the room is still being cleaned. The owner of the restaurant also owns the air BnB & kindly gives us free beer while we wait.
While sitting here, not for tHe first time we observe people standing in the road with signs & shaking cups trying to get money from the drivers.
It's a very sad sight. The More you look, the more you see in Cape Town. We have already seen countless numbers of homeless people walking the streets & sitting on the sidewalk.
Finally we are let into our accommodation! It's perfect. It's cosy, neat & comfortable. We immediately put on the radio, unpack our bags & make ourselves at home, taking advantage of the wardrobe, bathroom vanity, kitchen & lounge room.
It's so nice to have furniture & privacy.
The beds a tiny bit short for Tom, but you would never hear us complaining! It's a bed!
We shower, watch some tv & then get ready for dinner which is downstairs. Sadly, the ATC crew can't join us but Jill, Julian & Noria do.
The food is amazing & at a very reasonable price. We all leave very happy, full & sleepy.
Once back up at the apartment, I tackled some of the blogs & Tom fell asleep on the lounge watching a Denzel Washington movie.
- Alli
We didn't particularly like this girl, nor did any of our friends on the tour because of how negative, shallow & rude towards cultural & traditional practices she could be.
Thankfully, over the past 6 weeks of tour, we've kept a list of positive & negative things as feedback to give ATC at the end. Yesterday I spent nearly 3 hours turning these dot points into a very detailed email. One dot point from Vic falls was to mention this potential situation of a complaint email. At the time of writing the email, I pondered even mentioning it, I'm glad I did now!
Big companies need truthful feedback about the negative & positive & People need to really be careful about negative emails & realise the impact it can have on someone's livelihood & future.
I mentioned my big email to Jurumba & said that Tom & myself had said a lot of positive things & not to worry. We invited them out for beers & dinner later as well, if they felt up to it.
Finally it was time to check into our Air BnB. Once again, Tom has done a phenomenal job finding & booking us the perfect place to stay.
It's a 500 metre walk from Ashanti & is very central.
It's situated on top of an Italian restaurant called Nona Lisa & has balcony views of Table Mountain.
When we arrive, the room is still being cleaned. The owner of the restaurant also owns the air BnB & kindly gives us free beer while we wait.
While sitting here, not for tHe first time we observe people standing in the road with signs & shaking cups trying to get money from the drivers.
It's a very sad sight. The More you look, the more you see in Cape Town. We have already seen countless numbers of homeless people walking the streets & sitting on the sidewalk.
Finally we are let into our accommodation! It's perfect. It's cosy, neat & comfortable. We immediately put on the radio, unpack our bags & make ourselves at home, taking advantage of the wardrobe, bathroom vanity, kitchen & lounge room.
It's so nice to have furniture & privacy.
The beds a tiny bit short for Tom, but you would never hear us complaining! It's a bed!
We shower, watch some tv & then get ready for dinner which is downstairs. Sadly, the ATC crew can't join us but Jill, Julian & Noria do.
The food is amazing & at a very reasonable price. We all leave very happy, full & sleepy.
Once back up at the apartment, I tackled some of the blogs & Tom fell asleep on the lounge watching a Denzel Washington movie.
- Alli
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