Manuela proud of her mountain climbing

Cassie, Val & Manuela climbing Table Mountain.

I have officially hiked Lions Head and one of the seven wonders of nature in the world aka Table Mountain. Table Mountain was definitely a big challenge for me-shout out to Val and Cassie for sticking with me! We took the trail skeleton gorge, which starts, in Kirstenbosch gardens. Although it was challenging I really loved taking this path; there was plenty of shade and the path never stayed the same. I was able to climb some rocks and walk through sand. I knew that the path would take us around three hours to get to the top but I guess I wasn't actually prepared for this because I did not think I was going to make it at some parts; every time we asked someone how much longer they would say 45 min. but then 45min. would pass and we were nowhere near finishing.  There was one area on the mountain that had sand and a lake thing which I thought was so cool but yet so confused on to how that could be on the (almost) top of a mountain. When we got to the top it was extremely foggy and windy which made it a bit scary because we got a bit lost and it didn't help we couldn't see anything. At one point we ran into another group of students that we started to follow an luckily we were able to find our way to the cable car (our plan was to take it down) only to find out that the cable car was closed due to all the wind. Luckily the clouds were in and out and allowed us to see the amazing view from table mountain (definitely worth it!) but unfortunately the shops were closed so I could not buy a shirt that said I hiked table mountain (it's a very proud moment!). We did not want to accept the cable car was off because at this point our journey had reached four hours.  I had to seriously mentally prepare myself to hike this mountain down and it only kept getting more cloudy and windy.  I must say going down was more difficult than going up especially since we had to take a different route due to the weather conditions. As we were hiking down I realized how dangerous/adventurous what we were doing actually was (especially when we got lost on the top-I was glad we took this path down because now I have no interest of ever going up that path.) When we finally made it down after SIX HOURS I was so happy to see the taxi that was going to be taking us to cocoa wah-wah for our celebratory meal and our amazing chocolate brownie dessert!

Manuela at the top of Lion's Head

This Sunday was full moon, which is a very popular time for people to hike up Lions Head to see the view. The path was much shorter than Table mountain and we reached an area were we had to use chains to get up the path (my favorite part!).  When we reached the top of the mountain we had made it just in time to watch the sunset, which was beautiful, and moments later you could see the full moon on the other side this view was absolutely stunning! A lot of pictures were taken and then we started to make our way down. The line of people was so shocking to get down which is why it took us longer. It was probably a good thing that there were a lot of people because the hike down was very dark other than the light that the moon was shining.  I must say I am very proud of myself for hiking these two mountains! Two things I can cross off my Cape Town bucket list!