Saturday, we were scheduled to climb Table Mountain. Table mountain is an amazing mountain that looks over all of Cape Town. Our bus arrived at the foot of the mountain in the morning, and we were met with incredible winds. We were advised by rangers, a policeman, and other hikers that we should not attempt the climb. Table Mountain is one of the top death causing mountains, but a small group of us were determined to face the winds nonetheless. And I justified that most of the deaths were from cliff climbers, not trail hikers. This “fact” seemed vaguely familiar to me as something I had heard, but it is likely that it was completely fabricated by my subconscious. But it was good enough for us and we were even more intent on climbing. Then our semester coordinators told us climbing the mountain was not an option because it was too unsafe. Plan B was to go downtown, and from there everyone could split up to shop, go to the beach, etc. After driving into town, me and 7 others immediately hopped into a taxi and went straight back to the mountain to climb it anyway. And we did. Our motivations of the morning were even more magnified by rebellion: not only against being told we may not do it, but against being told we were not capable of doing it. It was definitely a hard hike. It was very long and tiring, but we were pretty safe the entire time, and we ultimately climbed the trail in much less time than it was marked to take. The summit was beautiful. Our soreness and tiredness was obliterated inside the shadow of our desire to frolic. And frolic we did. We frolicked around the huge summit and all the way back down the mountain while thoughts of friendship and badassery danced in our heads.
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