Cape Town: CLIIIIIIMB EVVVVVVVV'RY MOUNTAAAAAAIN

Before I get into the meat of this post, I just want to say that one of our reporters at the Cape Times was stabbed over the weekend. Gang violence is getting worse here and it's becoming increasingly apparent that when reporters are involved, the police are unlikely to intervene. Please keep him in your thoughts, as well as the Cape Argus reporters who were recently robbed at gunpoint.

On a more cheerful note, this weekend, four of the Northwestern interns from Johannesburg came to visit us and do various things in Cape Town. They stayed with us and we finagled the room in our apartments for them to sleep. (Dan is still living with us, so basically everyone in the world was staying in our apartments, especially the one across the hall.) Abby, Lauren and two of the Joburgers jumped out of a perfectly good plane on Saturday after three of the Joburg kids had spent the previous day getting drunk out in wine country.

But none of that's important, and you know why? You know what I did this weekend? I climbed Table Mountain. I climbed THIS:

"Dear Diary, mountains are high as fuck."

I climbed with Anna, another of the Joburg kids, up through Platteklip Gorge. It made Lionshead look like a hill. I felt bad because I had to keep stopping--Anna is a triathlete, and I am not that. I'm not even out of shape, because I've never been in shape. It was very, very steep though, and eventually we got high enough that the altitude took a toll on both of us.

It was a cloudy day, and there were clouds settled on the mountain, making it only possible to see for short distances most of the way. It was incredibly cool--as Anna said, it was like being in a movie. It made the whole mountain look primordial and wild, and it helped that almost no one else was stupid enough to hike that day due to the cold, the wet and the cloud cover. It was quiet on the path--there were parts where all you could hear was the trickling water and your own breathing. The rock was full of small waterfalls, as was the path, and the green, bushy fynbos grew all the way up the mountain. (Fynbos is the native fauna of the Western Cape; it grows low to the ground and much of the plants have beautiful flowers.)

Anna was the perfect companion because of her positivity and her interest in the formation of the mountains and the plants. Finally, someone appreciates everything I learned from Danny last weekend...no, seriously though, I don't actually know anything about the natural wonders of the land here. We're both interested in it and appreciate it, and it was nice to have someone to wander in nature with who wondered at it as much as I did.

I thought I was going to die due to the toughness of the hike, but when we made it to the top, it was amazing. It was a beautiful view--Cape Town is on one side, and the sea is on the other. I also felt invincible, and I'm always going to remember that hike when things get tough (or seem tough) in my life.