Meng's Travels: Table Mountain

Table Mountain is Cape Town's famous landmark. You can't miss this iconic structure from anywhere in the city. It rises from the ocean and creates a striking backdrop to the city and goes all the way down to Cape Point. You must visit Table Mountain when you come to CPT. You can do it the easy way, like most people do, taking the cable car up to the top. Or, you can hike up on one of three trails, with different degrees of difficulty. However, CPT, because of its geography, gets a lot of strong winds and when that happens the cable car does not run. If you are there for only a few days, then you have to hike.
Some friends (that I met on the Bazbus) and I decided to hike up there. The cable car wasn't running that day anyway because of strong winds. We were told it'd be an easy 2-3 hour hike. Heck no! It was anything but easy. To make things worse, not too long after we started, the clouds rolled in. It started getting cold and when we got to the top, we couldn't see anything. That defeats the purpose of going to the top - so you can have a beautiful view of the city. We weren't prepared for the cold so we were glad to be coming down. A couple of Dutch girls in our group have never hiked a mountain. They said there are no mountains in Holland. They had a hard time coming down because they are not used to climbing down rocks. We were so glad we finally got down to the bottom of the mountain.

Taken from the City Center on a clear sunny day

Visitor Center where you take the cable car up

It was a clear and beautiful day at 9 am

A beautiful view of the city and waterfront

Clouds start rolling in when we started at 9:15 am

Top is still visible while we were climbing

Got to the top but can't see anything.

Cloudy most of the way down

Can't see the city at all until we're almost at the bottom

So glad we finished and get to the bottom!

Geraniums are native to this part of South Africa

A few days later the sky cleared and the winds stopped blowing so hard. I took the opportunity to go up to Table Mountain again because I heard the views are fantastic on a clear day. I took a city bus to a street near the mountain and walk about a mile to the Visitor's Center. It was quite crowded, being a Sunday, but the line for the cable car was not too bad. I waited perhaps about 15 minutes before I got on the cable car. Boy, am I glad I did.
The view of the city and the surrounding areas were wonderful. The South Africa National Parks (SAN Parks) did a great job building the top for visitors. The cable car ride took only about 5 minutes. It was designed so that the bottom of the car slowly rotates while it is going up so that everyone has a rotating view around the mountain. On top, there was a cafe where you can have snacks or lunch and enjoy the views. They also set up interpretive stations to educate visitors about the geography, wildlife, plants, etc around CPT. I spent about 90 minutes up there and took a lot of pictures.