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Journal entry brought to you by Sophie
Wednesday 21st February
TABLE MOUNTAIN!
Today we moved out of Ashanti Lodge to the Long Street Backpackers for a change of scenery and so that we were more into the town. Matt and Jazz resisted carrying our big rucksacks (so they are nowhere near a replacement to Matt and Jon - you guys rock!) although I did manage to palm off my small rucksack and our massively huge food bag on them...my charm does work over here! We dumped our stuff in our new home (not as nice as Ashanti - we are living in an open dorm so that should be interesting when people walk through to get to their rooms at night but there are beautiful mosaics on the wall and a very pretty garden. There was also randomly a cat on the chair in our room, which made me think of George. (My cat, incase you were not aware) There are also two dogs and another cat who are very friendly and cute. Don't worry mother they don't have fleas...as far as I can tell) We then filled up on water to prepare us for the hike up Table Mountain.
We caught a taxi to the bottom of the cable car because we were planning to hike up the gorge from there. The taxi driver strangely supported Manchester United so we had a good old debate about why West Ham was clearly better... don't worry I am promoting the home team over here too Dad!
When we reached our destination, the views over the city were absolutely stunning and we weren't even near the top. You could see for miles around, the main town, Robben Island, the ocean - it was truly spectacular. The hike itself was hard going - I was strongly reminded of World Challenge. This is no doubt due to the fact I have not exercised properly for absolutely ages and up the whole way I was cursing office life. However it was definitely worth it. The views were out of this world and I am so proud of Tami and myself for tackling it and completing it. The whole thing took about two hours but I felt ready to conquer the world at the top!
However, you will not believe it, but it was so cloudy at the very top of the mountain we could not see a single thing except a blurry vision of the town! I was so upset because I had wanted to have a look at the Twelve Apostles (a mountain range) and Cape Point etc but unfortunately it didn't clear. Gutted!
Lunch at this point was an absolute necessity, which was devoured very quickly by the four of us. Exercise and expert photography on a mountain is hard work I'll have you know! Excitingly you can send postcards from the top of the mountain, which we promptly did (sorry only le parents got one because it was rather chilly up there and Sophie being the exceptionally clever one didn't even think about taking a fleece with her..) and then lazily caught the cable car down. This was as exciting as climbing up because it rotated and the views were perfect. Yes, I am going on about the views because they were amazing and I guess you have to have been there to appreciate them - Jon you know what I am talking about!
We caught a taxi back to the hostel and then met our roomate - a German girl called Frauka, who is on holiday here at the moment but is trying to get some work experience in a hospital as she is studying medicine back home. Her English is exceptional, which is what I have noticed of a lot of foreigners around here. I am so angry that we British are far too lazy to properly learn a language.
I was very creative at dinner because I whipped up an omlette - I am a culinary genius I tell you, while Tami went to the Noodle Bar. We then had a quick nosy around the rest of the hostel and met some more people in the TV room. We were feeling a bit left out after having being made to feel so at home at Ashanti but we have been informed that tomorrow there is a pub crawl along Long Street, which we will just have to join! This hopefully will make us feel more included.
Bye bye for now :)
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