An involuntary city tour followed by Table Mountain

The day before, I set my alarm clock just before nine o'clock, highly motivated to make the most of the day. But when I finally managed to get out of bed today at eleven, that motivation was already gone. First thing I did was head to the beach promenade to figure out how to get to Table Mountain and back again.

Of course, in Cape Town, there are the typical tourist buses that drive in a ring shape through the whole city and explain the highlights of Cape Town through headphones. I decided to invest a few Rand in a three-day bus ticket, as you can easily get off and back on anywhere. These buses conveniently stop almost right in front of my accommodation and at Table Mountain.

In my youthful naivety, I accidentally took the bus in the wrong direction and found myself forced to cross the entire city by bus to reach my goal, Table Mountain.

It turned out that it wasn't such a stupid idea after all, as I got a wonderful overview of the whole city. For example, I learned that Cape Town has almost perfect feng shui, with Table Mountain serving as the "backrest" and the two adjoining mountains, Lion's Head and Devil's Peak, serving as the "armrests" of Cape Town. Devil's Peak got its name from a legend of a smoking contest that the pirate Jan van Hunks won against none other than the actual Devil. Both of them disappeared in a puff of smoke afterward, which also solves the mystery of the occasional mist around Table Mountain. That's it.

Arriving at Table Mountain, by the way, one of the new Seven Wonders of Nature, I decided against a two-and-a-half-hour hike and opted to take the cable car up to the summit, which turned out to be almost an hour-long queue. But after that, I could enjoy the wonderful view of Cape Town, Table Bay, the Twelve Apostles, and Robben Island, which, despite its barren surface, is not related to the football player of the same name but served as a prison island during the Apartheid era, among others Nelson Mandela.

Moreover, there were countless little Klipspringers, or Dassies as they are called in South Africa, which surprisingly are the closest relatives to elephants. Honestly, I would have mistaken them for misfit marmots.

Back in Camps Bay, I enjoyed the beautiful sunset on the beach and packed my things before heading to Cape of Good Hope tomorrow and moving to the city center.