Cape Town Diaries: Table Mountain

The backstory

THIS WAS THE THING…the BIG THING. The big thing on our family’s South Africa trip To-Do list. However, the appeal for mountains and people wanting to climb them is generally lost on me. I love to admire Mother Nature from a safe distance. I see a mountain…yeah…cool nature thingy coming out of the ground or something. I see the ocean…yeah cool swimming pool or whatever…can’t swim so yeah. I’ll be over there on the sand (or grass)…getting tan or whatever black people do at the beach. The rest of my family though... So yes, we were going to climb a mountain.

THE PLANNING. While my sister, Daphne, did the math, the finances, AND THE PLAN, ignoring everything my mother was helpfully trying to contribute in the background, I was having a minor anxiety attack about all the ways she wanted to climb the mountain. I was also suffering from a case of stress-induced migraines and the toothache from hell at the time, so I was particularly non-receptive to this plan. Anyway, long story short, we throw out every other plan for Cape Town in unanimous consent to climb a rock (hiking).

HERE’S WHERE EVERYTHING GOES SOUTH. Collective plans of raising at the ass-crack of dawn and getting to the ticketing booths by 6 am are ruined by my three-year-old cousin throwing a tantrum (Ah, to be you, Angie!). We arrive in time for me and my dad to lose our shit (silently) at the bill. But everybody is vibrating with excitement at a frequency that can shatter glass, so we are clenching our over-priced tickets and on a tour bus up the mountain. We've agreed that we might as well experience the full extent of being tourists, tour bus, cable car and all. (Thank God for small mercies). AND THE QUEUES at the top to climb the mountain!!!!!! We bypass mountain climbers (HIKERS) and tourists, on our way to the back of the line. The walk is a climb in and of itself, as the entrance to the cable cars is located a little aways from where the buses dock and the end of the peak-tourist-season queue we weren't expecting. There are dancers and drummers off to the side giving helpful background music to our walk of something. An on-sight entertainer/MC provides unhelpful jokes about the cable car shutting down due to poor weather conditions. Everyone is nervous.

THREE HOURS into waiting… the jokes? VERY REAL. Don’t get me wrong. The three hours of waiting get me, not the not going up the mountain. We (un)happily reroute the trip. We take a deck bus tour around the Cape Front. When I say it’s windy down in Cape Town Bay, I fear that’s an understatement. It’s a bad day to take an open deck bus tour because Cape Town winds are no joke, bra! (BAD DAY ALL ROUND FOR TAKING A CABLE CAR UP A MOUNTAIN TOO! Just saying) Ask those decades-old trees leaning at a windswept angle down the boulevards like they are waiting to snap at the waist but no one else is giving them a break. (I’m sorry, that was a horrible dad joke) We are appropriately slapped in the face by coastal breezes on steroids before we end up at a restaurant downtown at 4 pm eating lunch. Yes, it’s that kind of trip. We had a lovely view of the beach though.

POINTS. Like proper vindicated tourists, we are at the ticket office demanding a refund thirty minutes to closing time. The offices are closed thirty minutes earlier than usual. (Laughs in capitalism) We postpone the trip and our anger for two days later. We wake before the ass crack of dawn, fussy babies be damned. We are informed by a smiley ticketing agent that “…discounted tickets are valid for a fortnight but not refundable”. Yeah, Capitalism. We go back up the bloody mountain and stand in a line, clinging to optimism. The cable car is closed for bad weather conditions when we reach the front of the line. I’m scared of nature but my GOD! The power of the cosmic universe! We eat cold sandwiches on a patch of grass at the edge of the sand, down at the beach with a lovely view of the ocean. I pass out due to a migraine but generally happy times all around. No one mentions going for a swim.

TENACITY MAKETH OUR FAMILY. So we postponed that trip to the weekend before the official working days after the Christmas holidays end, well within the fortnight timeframe. And ….no lines. But it’s the cloudiest day they’ve had the whole week. So the cable car IS open for business. Zero visibility on up AT THE TOP! We have no view of anything below at the top. Happy times. We crowd into the cable car with a bunch of predominately French tourists. God must be French I think, staring at a view of smoky clouds and the grey mountain face, as we go up. I won’t lie, it was pretty amazing reaching the top, ignoring every anxious bone in my body and every helpful imagery my brain can conjure up of falling off a mountain. The ride up is calm, with a buzz in the background drowning out the undertones of disappointment at the thick cloud cover obscuring what would have been a glorious view of the Cape Town bay. And despite the gloomy setting of fog and clouds silently stalking among the fauna and jagged rocks at the top, the top of Table Mountain makes for one hell of an experience when you do get there.

view from the queue at the entrance to the cable car of Cape Town

WHAT TO SEE

Rising at about 1067 meters above sea level, Table Mountain (Tafelbery in Afrikaans), the famous South African landmark, offers wonderful views of the Table Bay area, the famous Ruben Island as well as the Atlantic seaboard. It forms a monumental background to the beautiful seafront of Cape Town’s lovely beaches. Reaching the top, one can observe the pristinely maintained flora and fauna, coexisting among the ragged rocky landscape, with well-mapped-out walkways that offer tourists and hikers alike incredible serene walks. My family and I visited in the morning between the hours of 8 and 11 in early January, at the tail end of the South African spring, when the weather is nice and warm, with a little chill in the air. One feels infinitely embraced within the mountain ranges, which provides an understanding as to why the feature forms an emotional part of the local social and cultural identity.

HOW TO GET THERE

The top of the mountain range can be accessed by aerial cable car, taking passengers up to 302 meters above sea level. Tickets can either be pre-purchased online at the Table Mountain cable car website or the Cape Town city tour website. One can also purchase tickets at the ticketing booths both at the table mountain and at the Cape Town tour bus station in Cape Town. You can rent a car and drive up the mountain and park it at the available parking areas, go there by UBER or pay to take a tour bus there, as part of your tour around Cape Town.

ACTIVITIES

SIGHTSEEING – On good fogless, cloudless days, one can enjoy beautiful views of surrounding mountain ranges, the cape below, and the flora and fauna on top. (Watch out for the resident dassies, mountain squirrels? They look like rats on steroids. I'm sorry if I spoiled it for anyone.)

HIKING – Hiking is free, you crazy mountain huggers! However, one can opt to buy a one-way ticket up the mountain by cable car and hike down or vice versa for a fraction of the price. (whispers in Capitalism)

PARAGLIDING – Google this yourself. I get anxious just thinking about it.

MOUNTAIN CLIMBING (In my mind this is truly different from hiking, my mind only supplies extra reasons to dislike the activity) – What it says on the tin.

FREE TABLE MOUNTAIN TOURS

CAFES – There are beautiful cafés at the top with lovely ambiance and food as well as lounges, gift shops, and WIFI. (They should really advertise the wifi bit more, I would climb that mountain more regularly)

CYCLING - Because South Africans know no fear of gravity.

Been up to Table Mountain before?

PAT!