Climbing mountains?! Why would anyone do that?!

In my previous post, I referred to climbing mountains. Huh? Yes, I hear you:

Climbing mountains, most of you would say, why on earth would you do that?  There are cable cars for such things! And what about the muggers?!  the South Africans would scream. Why not just sip a margarita while looking at a mountain instead? (In South Africa, it is not uncommon to get mugged while hiking up our mountains. Our criminals are partial to fresh air and find it most enjoyable to work outdoors, weather permitting of course).

And I agree with your sentiments.

Nevertheless, it comes so highly recommended by all these nature-loving, environmentally-friendly, awfully nice people. So, I thought hell, I like to try out new things, maybe I should give it a go (and it’s on my list) so last Saturday I set out with 4 of my wonderful lady friends (who needs men anyway?) to climb Lion’s Head.

I enjoyed it. And I have to say, there are many advantages to climbing a mountain that I feel necessary to share with you:

1.       It works the hell out of your ass (I found it difficult to sit for the next few days but I loved every moment of it)

2.       You can do it even when there is load-shedding (Foreigners, load-shedding is a South African phenomenon whereby our electricity provider, Eskom, provides power outages on purpose. They forgot that South Africa is a developing country and neglected to consider the possibility of growth and a higher demand of electricity in the future. But don’t worry, we have a timetable so we are never caught unaware – awfully kind of them)

3.       Fit, bare-chested men run up the mountains for you to watch at leisure (Who knew you could run up a mountain?)

4.       Crazy foreigners provide all sorts of entertainment: their attire (either looking as if they are about to go have tea at the Mount Nelson, or in full on safari gear), their mannerisms (Boyfriends carrying their girlfriends’ handbags while hiking) or the way in which they refuse to put any sun tan lotion on and turn a lovely lobster red.

5.       Oh, and the views of course:

All in all, it was a lovely, criminal-free, active and entertaining morning.