Last Day in Cape Town - Let's Go Mountain Climbing!

OK, as usual, the blog is a little out of date. I am now in Muscat, Oman...which wasn't even on the original itinerary. It has been a very, very busy several weeks. Good news is that I finally have an Internet connection that is fast enough to allow me to post some videos. Who would have thought that I'd have to go to Oman for that to happen?

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Our last day in Cape Town was spent climbing mountains. We didn’t plan this particularly well, because the clothes that we wore to explore those mountains would be the same ones that we would wear for the next 20+ hours as we flew from South Africa to Egypt. Yep – smelly, sweaty, locker-room-like clothes that would torment our fellow plane-mates for nearly a full day. Not that their bearded, robe-wearing, smelly-sandaled bodies were any better…but you know, at least we wore deodorant.

And when I say “climb[ing] that mountain,” I actually mean “we rode a cable car up the mountain.” I mean, come on, everybody who reads this blog knows me…so who am I kidding? We didn’t “climb” anything. Although, once dropped off at the top of Table Mountain, we did go up and down the various cracks and crevices that a million years of rain have made. Even THAT was enough to make me winded! As you’ll hear in the video, I’m having trouble breathing. Hard to believe that I stopped smoking 2 years ago…but there you have it! I was near 20,000 feet or something while filming…so give me a break! I was camera man, director, producer, and actor…there was a lot of pressure up there! Plus, there’s very little oxygen at those altitudes! In fact, I’m pretty sure they make astronauts train on this mountain before they send them to space.

The cable car itself is quite an experience. It’s shaped somewhat like a flying saucer from a 50’s sci-fi movie (which lends credence to my theory about astronaut training). The cool thing is that it spins on its way up (and down). This is to make sure that everybody gets a good view of the awesome scenery. Otherwise, big people would probably squish the smaller folks against the windows in their efforts to see the rock face and / or sea-side views

Upon arriving at the top, the entire ticket-buying cable-car masses are left on their own. Everybody is free to explore 3,500 ft. sheer cliffs as he or she sees fit. As for me, I decided to explore the “off the beaten path” track and wound up seeing sides of the mountain that no man was meant to see. I filmed what I could of this adventure…but it simply wasn’t possible to hold a camera to capture the best footage while swinging from ledge to ledge and grasping jagged rocks with my fingertips while supporting both my weight and the weight of my boss’ boss (Scott). But I think the footage that I did manage to take speaks largely for itself…