Adventure Time: Road Trip Day 4

Day 4 - Thursday the 10th of February - Climbing Mountains - Total Pain: lots

The day of the big climb and yes another 6am wake up.. woe to me.

Bayan, although having accomplished this great task once before and swearing that she would never do it again, wanted to climb Table Mountain and me just going along with things as I do said yes. We had to leave early to drive and pick up some friends of Bayan and soon we became a climbing party of 4; myself and Bayan and brothers Dominique and Angelo. The morning started with me being super tired, driving 40kms away from the mountain to pick people up then driving 40kms back to the mountain (on a side note Table Mountain is a 5min drive from our backpackers) being stuck in peak time traffic and then finally reaching the base of the mountain 2 hours later than we had originally hoped to. As you might imagine I was not in a good mood.

So we decided that since we were behind schedule we would opt for a shorter route up and down the mountain but one that was very very steep. When someone tells you that the route is steep in your head you're like "yeah no worries" but when you start climbing man oh man do you realise how difficult it is.

We started climbing and it was after about 5minutes that I realised this was not going to be fun. It was all stairs, not like pretty stairs with hand rails and even heights, it was rock stairs that went up the mountain like the secret stairs to Mordor in The Lord of the Ring. Having only slept 4-5hours and on an empty stomach because we were running late Bayan and I felt the strain very early on and the boys weren't helping as they are both like 2metres tall and had lots of energy so they were setting a really fast pace.

I won't go into the details of the climb as it took about 1.5hours except to mention a few key words... pain, suffering, despair, sweat, aching, desperation, exhaustion, torture, tribulation, lack of motivation, anguish, loss of hope, overwhelmed.

The number of times while climbing that mountain I wanted to lay on the floor and just die were insane. Like I actually thought that I wanted to die. I really don't believe that any words or pictures can describe how difficult and energy consuming that climb is. Honestly you had to take it one step at a time. I would take one step, I would pause, I would take another step, I would pause, I would take the next step, I would pause. There was no other way for me. Angelo was leading the group ahead of me and Bayan and Dominique were just behind me so as I tackled this climb on my own I started to drift off into thought and I came up with the following analogy. It is very much cliche but what can I say? When you're climbing a mountain, you're climbing a mountain.

The analogy I created of my climbing this mountain was that this climb represented my time serving. How did I come to this bizarre conclusion you may ask? I know it's obvious, but there was just so much in terms of my mental state while climbing that I could specifically relate to moments during my service. The enthusiasm to which I embarked on this trip, the lack of thought I gave to how difficult it would be, The realisation that this was harder than I had anticipated, the fear that I would not be able to complete the climb, the stern determination that I was capable of finishing, the set back of the path never flattening out to ease my climb and give me some relief, the creating of excuses for why it's ok not to finish, questioning why I decided to do this in the first place, the contemplation of quitting and going back down, then seeing that the way back down is longer than the way to the top, finding the strength to keep climbing, support and encouragement from friends keeping me moving, reaching a stage where I can see the finish and suddenly being filled with a new burst of energy, knowing that the finish is coming but feeling like it's still so far away before finally the moment of jubilant joy and accomplishment as I reached the top.

I'm sure without me explaining you see how this 90minute climb so distinctly related to my last 9 months of service. The parallels are obvious and really, really, really I have felt every single one of the above statements during this time even that of reaching the top.

At the top of the mountain the view was nice and we took some photos, then I inquired about the cost of the cable car to take us to the bottom and found out that it was R95 each so of course we climbed back down the mountain. There is no analogy, no wonderful understanding, no moment of clarity or journey to perfection that can be associated with this segment of the climb. Going down Table Mountain after having just climbed up is just plain stupid and the worst thing I have ever done. It kills yours knees, destroys your ankles, hurts your toes. Again thoughts of death pervaded my thoughts and I wanted to just lay myself down and wait until the time of death would come but I was the only driver and everyone was relying on me so I kept going. At one point the step was a little high so I decided to jump down, my knees and legs also realised that I wanted to jump down but felt that they had suffered enough already and so they would help me at all and so when I jumped my legs gave out and I just fell to the floor. All I could do was laugh at myself for how pathetic I was in that instant and try and get up and keep going.

All of the adjectives I listed before can be attributed to this descent and finally the road was reached.

While everyone else got to relax I had to drive us and so with aching and weak legs I drove us to our backpackers. Every time I had to put the clutch in or press the break a shot of pain would race through my leg, it was horrible. Then with no power steering I reverse parked into our tiny awkward spot and breathless from the effort of turning the steering wheel I went to shower.

With the mountain climbing behind us and Bayan again swearing she would never do it again we headed off for our next stop which was the Iziko Museum where there was a photographic exhibition that Bayan and I really wanted to see. Wow it was so worth it. It was an amazing exhibition, it was breath taking, it was spectacular, awe inspiring, transcendentally beautiful, majestic in its content and exquisite in its detail and leaving me in a state of absolute wonderment reinforced with each image. The exhibition was of the top photographs of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition for 2010. If I was allowed to take pictures of the pictures I would have because these are images that deserve to be shared however if you google search the name of the museum and exhibition you can find some pictures in the image search.

Unfortunately my legs were still weak and aching so I was sometimes distracted by these beautiful photos by the throbbing sensation but otherwise it was wonderful.

Next another great and wonderful experience.. FOOD! My first meal of the day and it was now 6pm. I had been craving Masala Dosa like crazy and have not been able to find it anywhere in P.E but thankfully Cape Town is much more diverse in terms of culture and so there are many Indian restaurants that I could take advantage of. At only R20 (about $3) I got some pretty great Masala Dosa. Every time my hand reached my mouth and deposited that amazing food onto my tongue I fell into a sweet state of ecstasy, only disrupted when each bite had been swallowed and my now empty mouth would cry for more.

The day ended with me driving out to drop Dominique home and with perfect timing we arrived just as his family was about to start a devotional gathering with some other friends. We sat together and said prayers, completed a day filled with every emotion possible from annoyance to zeal. I was annoyed in the morning but I ate my food with zeal at the end of the day so there you go A-Z.

My first time driving in the dark on this trip and as I expected I fell asleep a little bit which is the reason I had intended to avoid driving at night in the first place, nothing to worry about though I have become quite skilled at driving with my eyes closed due to so much practice whilst driving in Sydney.

This night I slept very well but my sleep was tainted knowing the pain I would be in in the morning.