By far my most anticipated and favorite day. We rode the cable car up the mountain to hike our way down! The ride up was neat, as the floor rotated inside the car so all passengers could see all views. Once on top of the mountain, one cannot describe the scenery. I could have taken a thousand pictures, and even the thousand words that each one would be worth could not convey the beauty. We were able to walk around on the top of the mountain, examining different shops or monuments on the top. An interesting one was a topographic structure of the mountain and the south of Cape Town, demonstrating the Twelve Apostles (twelve peaks) of the mountain. I found it compelling that the Atlantic Ocean was listed on both sides of the landscape, since apparently there is large debate about where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet.
After an hour and a half or so on the top of the mountain, we began our nearly five hour descent down. What should take an hour without stops, took an extensive amount of the day, as well as the night! Yes, we hiked down the mountain for about two hours during nightfall. Thankfully, the moon was bright. Sidetracked by gorgeous caverns, boulders, gorges, etc. and the need to assist fellow crew down, we finally got off the mountain around 8:30... the sun setting at 6! I was sad to miss the waterfall toward the bottom, as well as the beautiful carved stairs that moonlight barely shed light on, but thankfully the secondary group has an extra day to explore on a hike up on August 15th!
On the whole, the best part of the day was venturing to spots off the beaten "path" on the way down. The descent was not easy, but the exploration of places toward the sides with cliffs and little crevices was by far my most favorite. I could have camped on that mountain, if the weather permits... it did that night thankfully! We are so lucky it was clear, warm, and dry that night! However, I absolutely cannot wait to get back up on Table Mountain, as well as hike others in the future :D
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