Mountainsides and Left-Side Driving

Table Mountain has the most glorious view I have ever seen from a mountaintop. Cars from Cape Town have some of the most disorienting views of road driving that I have ever experienced.

After successfully navigating Cape Town's public train and taxi systems, Quynh and I make it to the base of Table Mountain, which is lined with cars and foreigners trying to take advantage of the unusually warm, sunny, and clear winter day. We luckily ran into an old man who works for the park, reminiscent of a sea turtle from Finding Nemo combined with a really tan hippie, who gave us a map and a bottle of water before we headed up the Platteklip Gorge trail- listed as one of the easiest trails on the mountain.

By "one of the easiest trails on the mountain", what the park is really saying is that it does not require you to climb on chains or nets or beat through the bush to get up the mountain. Instead, you are treated to a series of rocky steps and tiny waterfalls that spiral up the mountain. Because it was such a nice day and it was still the World Cup, you could see climbers up and down the trail. Families with whiny children who don't want to climb back down, seasoned hikers who run up and down the trail in sandals or no shoes at all, Muslims in full garb, accents of varied sounds. We start at the same time as a group of 3, who we later find out work for BCG and are on holiday and know some mutual friends from Yale, so we become sort of a super group with them- Baz (the South African woman), Michael (a purported American), and Manuel (a Costa Rican). As we traverse the trail, we take turns leading one another's groups aiming for a small gap between 2 ledges that would take us to the top. At times, it was like climbing a stairway to heaven, except having to stare up at Quynh the entire time. But the views just got better and better as we went up.

When you get to the top of the mountain, you feel like you've just made it onto Pride Rock and that Rafiki should come raise you up for all of Cape Town to see. Both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans are visible, and the beautiful beaches of Camps Bay lie beneath you as you look out at the Cape peninsula and acknowledge your body for suffering and sweating for the last 2.5 hours. This all juxtaposed with people who have taken the cable car up the mountain instead walking around in their sandals and blowing vuvuzelas and giving us live updates of the England-Germany game. The "shop at the top" restaurant that they had strangely offered more alcohol selection than food, thinking that hikers and casual cable car-riders would want to pop champagne on the mountain and enjoy the sights (though I only bought trail mix, I was incredibly tempted to get a refreshing Hunter's hard cider based off of things Connie Wang and Peach told me over the summer after their frisbee practices).

Luckily, Quynh's attractiveness to Manuel (even under her sweat and slight redness from hiking) got us a ride back down the mountain to town with the three of them. Which brings me to an interesting list I have compiled and will continue to update:

Things Quynh Do's attractiveness have gotten her on this trip:
1) A personal guide to Cape Town who lives in Stellenbosch
1a) A free program to the World Cup that usually costs R70 detailing all of the teams participating in the World Cup
1b) A trip around the Cape Peninsula and Camps Bay
1c) A lesson on how to dance the soekkie dance- essentially a waltz done in socks to pop music
2) An offer for a tour of a new exhibit at the Nelson Mandela Gateway Museum
3) A car ride down from Table Mountain (alleviating her discomfort with South African public transportation)
4) Shouts of "umlungu" (white person) as we drive through the townships

Things my attractiveness have gotten on this trip:
1) A lovely conversation with an older British and South African woman in a bar
2) Two rand from the Germans for dancing with said women

Also, we rented a car on Monday, and because South Africa has respect for the UK, they drive on the left. And because Quynh is afraid to drive here, I'm learning how to drive on the left.

Because automatic cars are only really prevalent in the US, there is a very small selection of automatic cars available in Cape Town, most quite expensive. We lucked out and found a place that gave us an 80's Toyota Corolla (essentially the car I learned to drive on) for R120 a day.

The setup is what throws you off: seeing the steering wheel in the right side with the gear shift on your left is strange, as is having the indicator lever on your right. Also, looking into mirrors from the different direction and now having to yield on green lights for right turns and not being able to turn left on red is strange. And everyone uses their parking brakes here because of habit from driving stick (even licensing is different- if you pass on an automatic car, you are only licensed to drive an automatic car and not a stick) And of course, driving in a mountainous area like Cape Town means highways and roads (which aren't really marked very well) are a bit steeper and curvier than usual. The first few turns I made, I turned on my windshield wipers instead. Also, just as it with houses, anti-theft security is nice and strict here. Before I can drive my car, I have to unlock my gearlock (a huge padlock on my gearshift), deactivate my immobilizer, and turn off my anti-theft system or the car will shut down, alarms will turn on, and I am trapped. Essentially, I hope that I never have to quickly leave any place or I'm screwed. Also, you never leave things in your seats. Never. Because smash-and-grab is a frequent crime that happens here (because of that, there is a law now that if you have a red light and you see people standing around that look potentially dangerous, you are allowed to drive through the red light). But after 1.5 days of driving, I have yet to have any incidents. Huzzah.