The climb

Today is Wednesday and yet my legs are still tired from the events of Monday.

Blessed with a beautiful, sunny day and a day off from work for the national holiday Youth Day (commemorating the Soweto uprising in 1976), my comrades and I decided it was time to do something outdoorsy: conquer Lion's Head.

Lion's Head is a very steep rock (seen from the top of Table Mountain in this picture)  that protrudes out of the earth from the center of Cape Town.

It is, indeed, as steep as it looks.

The hike begins on a relatively flat trail, but one quickly finds oneself having to climb ladders, chains, and enormous boulders. It's a good thing I wore relatively stretchy pants. If I been faced with such a rock climbing challenge by myself I probably would have sighed and turned back saying to myself, "Oh well, it simply can't be done."

But I wasn't by myself, in fact, being a holiday, there were quite a few people around to witness my lack of rock climbing skills. While I kept pausing to divert my thoughts away from the image of tumbling to my rocky demise, I was being passed on the trail regularly by young kids, their white-haired grandparents, and Graham, who was making the ascent with a bottle of wine in one hand.

A sympathetic boy no more than about 11 years-old, who was scaling the rocks with the nimble-footedness of a mountain goat, reached down to give me a hand at one point.

We did eventually make it to the top. Unfortunately, Graham's wine was warm by that time.

(You should see a photo slideshow here. If you don't see it, update your Flash settings or click here.)