(1/17) Hiking & Beach: this is the life

Today was pretty awesome. I had actually gotten some decent rest last night because I was anti-social and stayed in to unpack and get to bed early while one of my roommates went out.

I was up again at 6:30 (which is weird because that is 10:30 CST and I am usually tired by that time). By 8, a group of us set off to climb the Table Mountain. We had plans to climb Devil's Peak, but quickly figured that was unlikely because none of the trails were marked and we had no adequate map. We started by hiking through Upper Campus to Rhodes Memorial. It is beautiful.

After 4 hours of hiking different trails we met some locals who insisted we head to a local British pub for lunch and a beer. We made our way down the mountain into a super nice part of town and found the pub, Foresters Arms. We ordered a round of British beers and an app plate from our waiter, who is a student at UCT and insists we got out with him and his buds this Wednesday. The Afrikaners have been really nice and inviting. After lunch we caught a mini bus back to our flats because we were hella far away from where we started (I will figure out a good trail to do for when you and mom are here).

Once home we grabbed out suits and headed to the train station a block from our flats to head to the beach. It was a 30 minute ride but I was really tired from the hike/heat and may have dozed off for a minute or two. The beach was actually a bit chillier than I expected. The wind coming off the ocean was pretty intense, so it was an excellent contrast to the heat radiating from the sun. There was a black flag which meant that sharks couldn't be spotted because of the waves, but a shit ton of people were still in the water. Considering a man was straight up eaten less than 4 days ago while swimming chest deep on a beach with a black flag, I was not just about to jump in the water and risk having his fate. A horn went of

f later that day, which meant a shark had been spotted and it literally was close to shore for like 30 minutes, reaffirming my fear of them. We explored the beach and found an awesome soft serve ice cream shop and grabbed R8 twists cones! Excellent. By 6 we headed back to the train because we were told time and time again to NOT use the train or mini-buses after 7.

While we were heading back we stopped at Pick n Pay to grab some food to use in a barbeque we were planning later than night (it ended up being super windy so we post-poned for tonight) and I grocery shopped for the first time since getting here. Interstudy had a box of cereal, loaf of bread, peanut butter, bananas, and apples waiting for us when we got here. But, I was excited to have some food of my own picking.

Since the barbeque got cancelled, my roommates and I decided to stay in and watch Stardust on my laptop. It was nice to be able to shower and through on some pjs after the long day. I passed out within a few minutes of it starting; the sun and hiking really took it out of me.