The Long Goodbye

Sunday 24th July, 2005. Our Acacia African Adventure was over. My first 6 weeks on the road had ended, and it was time to attend to the slow but painful business of saying goodbye. But not quite yet - there were still a few things to sort out, a few things to attend to.

First of these was Table Mountain. On arrival, we had confirmed a rumour that had been doing the rounds as we got further south, namely that the Table Mountain Cableway (i.e. the cable-car up the mountain) was due to close the next day for 2 weeks, for maintenance. So, as soon as people had dumped their packs in their respective hostels (one large group in The Backpack, another in Ashanti Lodge, and various others, mostly couples, scattered across other places), and generally showered and cleaned up, we met back up at The Backpack, got in a cavalcade of taxis, and headed up to the Cableway for a late-afternoon ascent of Cape Town's imposing massif.

And, once again, things went basically fine to start with, although Kath and one or two others were a little bit nervous on the way up (despite having mostly got past my own fear of heights, I can certainly sympathise). Once up, people scattered over the top of the mountain and started doing their own things. And it was while taking on the unfamiliar role of birdspotter (I was looking at a black eagle, ok?), that I got approached by Kiri, who was visibly uncomfortable. She was one of those staying in separate accommodation from the main groups, and had made her own way up to the summit and, unfortunately, had not just gotten a little bit nervous on the cable-car ride up, but had a fairly serious panic attack, to the point of nearly being sick. Hence, she was now adamant that she would not take the cable-car back down, and wanted my help to find the way to walk back down.

Now, here I face a dilemma - the walk back down is at least 2 hours or so, and it's less than 2 hours pre-sunset. So Kiri, if she goes for this, is going to be doing at least part of it in the dark, down a 1000m+ mountain. And, while she has some water, she doesn't have walking boots, or even a coat or anything. But she insists she isn't going back down the cable-car. In the end, as I didn't have water or anything with me for the descent, I walked Kiri to the top of the main track back down the mountain, gave her my fleece, hat and gloves and set her on the way down. And immediately started worrying about whether I did the right thing, or whether I should have tried to bodily carry her onto the cable-car or something - it really isn't advisable to attempt the descent of Table Mountain on your own with night coming in. When I met back up with the others, they were similarly worried, but we agreed that there was basically nothing more we could now, except maybe ask the Rangers to keep an eye out for her coming down the track.

In the end, as it turned out, Kiri was fine - she made it back okay, and was reunited with the rest of us that evening, as we gathered (minus Kath and Yohan, our first departures) at The Backpack, before going on for a dinner at a nice little place called Arnold's. There, I kept up my usual eating habits and demolished some zebra steak. Mmmmm. After a pleasant dinner there, there were a few more of a long stream of tearful goodbyes and a bunch of us piled into taxis and headed out to the suburb of Clifton, and a little place called La Med. Which was at least half empty until we arrived, but gave everyone the chance to carry on drinking and have a bit of a boogie (I was relatively loath to indulge in the latter, given that the music was largely R'n'B, at least to start with). Around 1am, I joined the next bunch of those going home, leaving the die-hard maniacs to go on (to a gay bar, it later transpired) for further mayhem.

The next day, I took full advantage of having a bed and not having to put up a tent, and lay in until late morning. Then I got on with some of the inevitable domestic chores of getting my laundry done, reorganising the pack, going to the Post Office, lots of internet etc. And, in the evening, met up again with most of the remaining Acacia brigade and went for a very pleasant dinner down at the Waterfront of Cape Town, at a place called Quay Four. In the process I had my first pint of bitter in over 6 weeks (mmmmm, Bosun's Bitter) - not really the classic accompaniment to Cajun-blackened Cape Salmon, but it worked for me! After a very nice dinner (accompanied by some glorious wine, courtesy of Matt and Brandon, who had had an industry insiders' tour of some of the wineries that day), there were more tearful goodbyes, as we lost ever more of our group. This just reminded me once again that I really don't like extended goodbyes.

And the pattern was repeated to some extent the next day - lounging around in the morning, lots of internet time, went for a wander down to the old Castle of Good Hope, had a few drinks with my room-mates at Ashanti (including a mad Welshman, Richard, who I made the mistake of letting near my hair with clippers - I ended up with the most severe haircut I've had in over 5 years!) and then ended up diverting out for one last dinner with the remaining Acacians. Some of them came back to Ashanti afterwards, and hence cue yet more long goodbyes.

And then that was it. My Acacia experience was over. It was off to sleep, nice and early ahead of a morning departure for Stellenbosch. And that's where I shall have to pick up next time. Until then, my friends, goodbye!

Pat