Day 6
December 6, 2008
I woke up to the sound of Roger knocking on the door, which correlated with the African drums in my dreams. I quickly realized that it was time to get ready for our hike to Lion's Head. Bonita, Gareth's friend who we met last night at the airport, set it up for us to go hiking with some friends who were already planning to hike it that morning. As we slowly get up, I realize that the sun is out and we can see the view from our rented villa in Camps Bay. I look out the window and I am in complete awe. I am looking out into a deep blue ocean, which is the Atlantic Ocean. To the right I see a beautiful landform known as Lion's Head. Then, I start to panic. We are going to climb that. It looks pretty intense. Bonita also had mentioned that on the hike there would be a part where I would be climbing up using chains. What!!! I realize that I am in South Africa and I can take this challenge and it is Rey's birthday. I suck it up and get ready. I do point out the hike to Rey and Roger, who both don't believe that we about to hike that. We receive the phone call that Bonita and Gareth are on their way to show us to our meeting spot. We end up caravaning to the meeting spot. It turns out that Bonita and Gareth have a late night and are not going to hike. We meet our hiking guides, German, Franc, and Morne. They all look like they are in great shape and will probably want to run up the mountain. We do our introductions, German is Peruvian and lives in Barcelona part time and South Africa part time. Franc lives in Barcelona and is visiting South Africa for several weeks. Morne (accent over the e) lives in Cape Town. We begin the adventure and start up the trail. German while hiking was giving us the lowdown of the sites we were seeing as we climbed higher up and we were able to see more and more of Cape Town. As we climbed up, parts of the trail were starting to get a bit taxing. We finally reached the climbing part that involves a chain rope up. It was pretty steep and it was a novice rock climb, which would be okay for someone with upper body strength. As most of you know, my legs are way stronger than my arms. But, as I looked down, I had no alternative but to dig deep and climb. I am happy to say I was able to do it. (a little shout out to Michelle Mach, who took me to the rock climbing gym once ~ gave me the confidence to know that I could climb up that part ~ thanks) Look at the pictures and see. Once we climbed past the chains, we had about 15 more minutes of the steep hike. Yet, during these 15 minutes, I was puffing pretty hard and I noticed I was slowing down. But, the motivation was to just look up and know that we were almost there. Then, finally we made it to the top!!! It was an amazing view. On one side you see the Atlantic Ocean and on the other side the Indian Ocean. Both were magnificent. German was so sweet. He realized that he would be hiking with a bunch of first timers and brought champagne for the top. I then mentioned that it was Rey's birthday, so we did a birthday and a first-timers toast. What an experience and memory to be at the top of Lion's Head and sipping champagne. We hung out for awhile and realized that breakfast was awaiting for us at the bottom. We started our descend and I realized that I was pretty tired. Also, the hike is pretty popular and so there would be times of traffic jams because the trail was pretty steep and there were parts of passing single file. Roger and I also realized that we could not get the American mentality of moving to the right. But, over here people drive on the left side of the car and the left side of the road. So, people pass on the left. As we were walking down, everyone was so friendly. We met a guy, who I had offered to pass us because I was slow, but he said he didn't mind the pace. He asked if we were from the States. I asked how he knew and he could tell from our accent. He actually was a wealth of information. He was telling us about the language about Afrikaans and that there are only 3 million people left that speak it. He also gave us some sayings, which I hope to use now and then. He taught us "LEKKER" kind of sounds like you are saying Laker, but with a think English accent. Another saying sounds like buy a donkey, but it is spelled baie dankie, which means thank you very much. It was great to get a little history about Cape Town and their language. It also kept my mind off the fact that we were still hiking down and was getting tired. Also, I forgot to mention that the sun had been out the whole time and it was hot. Eventually, we made to the part of the trail where is was wide enough where we could all walk together. Yet, it was still steep where I definitely skidded and scared Franc and Morne several times. I told them it was just me adding some drama to our hike. Morne was funny because he would always try to grab me as I slipped. I told him to be careful because then I would take him down with me. His reply was that we would be able to roll together then!!! After a couple more of skidding scares, we finally made it!! Yeah! Breakfast time. German mentioned that there is great place called the Sandbar which was overlooking the ocean. So, we caravaned down and arrived at this cute cafe type of restaurant that had an open patio, which overlooked the ocean. As we drove down, Rey must have been tired because he kind of got too close to the curb on the left that we lost our hubcap to our rental car. We wanted to stop and get it, but we were following German to the restaurant. I don't know how Rey can drive stick on the left side and drive on the left side of the road?!?!?! Eventually, we made it and found parking. Gareth, Bonita, and Antonio (he was suppose to do the hike, but didn't wake up in time) joined us for breakfast. The food was amazing. Actually, the food overall has been amazing. I thought at one point I had the Montezuma's revenge, but realized that it was probably the homemade ice cream and that even though I am in South Africa, I am still lactose intolerant. All the foods here are so rich. I am definitely going to have to work hard when I get back. After breakfast, we decided to head up to the house and just relax by the pool and enjoy our amazing view. Unfortunately, the pool was not heated, but it was refreshing because it became hot. It was the type of hot where you would just sweat seating there while in the sun. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with Gareth and Bonita's friends, Kim, Jonathan, and German. Every now and then, I would try to blog the events of the day. Before we knew it, the afternoon had quickly gone and everyone left to get ready for Rey's birthday dinner. Rey decided to take a quick cat nap and Roger and I sat outside on the patio to continue blogging. We didn't get very much blogging. I ended up just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blahing. We end up chatting til Rey comes out and tells us that it is 7:15 and dinner reservations are at 8 pm. Roger and I scramble and get ready for Rey's birthday dinner at The Showroom. Rey had done his research and found this beautiful restaurant in Cape Town. The Showroom is known as a boutique five star restaurant. It is actually an extension of a showroom for luxury sports cars. On the menu, a couple of times, they had listed a car and its price with their main entrees. Our evening started with a butternut squash soup that came in what look like long shot glasses with straws. I can tell you what we ordered, but you will have to look at the pictures to see how artistic that would come out. I ordered a salad and a beef fillet. The unique thing about the meal was that after you chose your main dish you had to pick a sauce. These sauces aren't ordinary sauces. They had some unique combinations. I stuck to something that i was familiar with, which had basil, cilantro, and tomatoes, which came in a mortar and pestle, which I had to mull (this section was assisted by Rey) myself. I will just list the other menu items that everyone got and then look at the pictures. There was a duck entree, porkbelly entree, lamb shank entree, and my good old beef fillet. Since it was Rey's birthday, the chef made a complimentary dessert platter that said happy birthday in chocolate sauce. It also had turkish delights, frozen fruit balls, and as Rey would describe a cakey cookie, but it looked like a Madeline. We also ordered a flaming lambourghini, which was drink that was in a souffle and lit on fire. The waitress provided 5 straws, which were sucked on as she poured the different liquors in the center of the souffle and then she poured the flaming zambooka (sp?) which we continued to suck down through the straws. Just look at the pictures. It was definitely an interesting experience. After dinner, we went to the next event, which was a gay bar called the Bronx. Also, known as the safest place on earth for Liza, not Roger or Rey ; > It had an upstairs and downstairs bar with a DJ. We bought several rounds of shots in celebration of Rey's 40th. I must tell you that the shot glasses were tiny. Probably 4 of the South African shots were equivalent to 1 American shot. We also had some interesting mixtures of shots. When we first entered the club, we had a purple shot called Potent-C. It is suppose to be like a red bull and vodka, but in a tiny shot. One shot was called a sidekick, it was pretty intense. I really don't know what was in it, but it kind of reminded me of cough syrup. We also had jagermeister shots. We did some turns on the dance floor and I think it all hit us that we had had a full day. When I realized that I was not fit nor my ass was in shape enough to gyrate my ass like Rey's, I was ready to hit the sack (small shout out to ben : >). NAW!!! You all know I could've kept going, but I could tell we were all low on energy. Even my constant shouts of "one more shot!" didn't help. The sandman had already grabbed Roger and Rey. So, we said our farewells, paid the car guard and we were on our way home. Roger was the brave soul to drive home. Our navigator was this thing called a Garlim, I guess similar to a Tom Tom. Unfortunately, the Garlim was navigating another car that was already on its way to our destination. After a couple of honks, driving on the wrong side, and several outbursts that the Gremlin was a fu*king lying bitch, we gave in and called Gareth and Bonita. Bonita set us back on track and we were thankfully on our way home! It was an awesome day and I hope Rey had the best 40th birthday!!!
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