Table Mountain, South Africa

At the Adamastor Monster Table


South African Geographic
Frame on Cape Town's Waterfront frames the Table Mountain that serves as the backdrop to the city.
Resting bellevue
Cape Town dockworker rests on a ship, with the cloud tablecloth draped over Table Mountain in the background.
table lights
Evening surrounds Table Mountain, seen from the top of Lion's Head.
Yoga photo
Table Mountain visitors take a photo break on one of the trails that run along the top of Table Mountain.
table vs table
The full Table Mountain profile of a sand in Table Bay, north of Cape Town.
bathing decoration
Man inscribes artwork on the Glen Beach beach with the Twelve Apostles in the background.
Table Set
The famous tablecloth covers Table Mountain as seen from Cape Town's Waterfront.
A Nautical Frame
Passengers on the ferry connecting Cape Town with Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned during the South African Apartheid years watch Table Mountain drift away.
An imposing urban background
Part of Devil's Peak looms behind the office buildings that fill Cape Town's Waterfront area.
king of heights
Table Mountain Explorer expresses the sense of freedom and vastness felt at the top of Table Mountain.
12 Apostles
The sandstone ridges and vegetation of the Twelve Apostles, leading up to the long Cape Peninsula that ends at the Cape of Good Hope and its Ponta do Cabo.
table for two
Two visitors to Table Mountain on one of its many cliffs and against the South Atlantic silvered by the beginning of sunset.
Dazzling Urb
A young visitor to Table Mountain contemplates the Cape Town cityscape from one of the many viewpoints perched atop the mountain.
Up & down
The cable car with revolving cabins that connects the base to the top of Table Mountain.
A Sillouette Community
Figures of visitors share the rocky summit of Table Mountain.
From the earliest times of the Discoveries to the present, Table Mountain has always stood out above the South African immensity South African and the surrounding ocean. The centuries passed and Cape Town expanded at his feet. The capetonians and the visiting outsiders got used to contemplating, ascending and venerating this imposing and mythical plateau.

An Omnipresent Table

There is no escaping Table Mountain. Embedded in the labyrinth of docks, porches and walkways of the Waterfront or Cape Docks.

In successive inlets to the east and south that the South Atlantic lashes without clamor and covers with enormous seaweed: Sea Point, Bantry Bay, Clifton, Camps Bay, also others further away, to the north, Table View and Bloubergstrand.

The same goes for the intricate interior of the city, be it the colorful Bo-Kaap or the more serious and composed around De Waterkant or ZonneBloem.

Table Mountain seen from Table Tay, Cape Town, South Africa.

The full Table Mountain profile of a sand in Table Bay, north of Cape Town.

As long as the weather does not contemplate low clouds, Table Mountain insinuates itself with Cape Town and to the vast surroundings as the secular guardian of the great South African city it has become.

This flat mountain protects it from the south winds and most of the variants. For centuries, it facilitated its defense and, not least, granted the colonists and current citizens of the Cape Town one of the most breathtaking abodes on the face of the Earth.

The first afternoon, we spent it at the same Victoria & Alfred Waterfront that served as a freight pier in the days of the Dutch East India Company, when the area north of the Cape Town (Table Bay) became known as “The Taverna of the Seas” due to its preponderance in the supply of Dutch ships, but not only that.

The Stunning Tablecloth

A thick, surreptitious fog had crept up the South Atlantic. It hovered over the harbor area and kept even the roofs of the highest buildings covered.

Just towards the end of the day, a providential wind blew it to other places and let us glimpse the cliffs overlooking Table Mountain, from Devil's Peak at the eastern edge of its nearly two miles in length to Lion's Head at the opposite end.

Of the mist, there was only a streak that hung from the top of the plateau, more or less extensive, depending on the intensity of the southwest wind and the density of the orographic clouds already formed.

Table Mountain seen from the Waterfront, Cape Town, South Africa.

The famous tablecloth covers Table Mountain as seen from Cape Town's Waterfront.

The natives are already used to the appearance of what they nicknamed Table Cloth and its magical movement over the mountain. They have appreciated, portrayed and qualified it in ways that have been refined over time. Some say that it is God himself who lays out the towel.

Among the Malay community based in Cape Town, the myth that the effect results from a peculiar smoking competition became popular. Van Hunks, a retired Dutch pirate, never put down his pipe. He was smoking at the foot of Devil's Peak when a stranger approached and challenged him to a pipe duel.

After a long day of smoke (it is even said that the duel will have lasted several days) a huge cloud of smoke had enveloped them and Table Mountain. Van Hunks realized not only that he had won the duel but that his rival was the Devil. The two disappeared in a flash of lightning. left behind the tablecloth which is, today, from time to time, visible.

As a rule, when the “table is set”, and the wind or rain is too strong, the authorities close the accesses to the top of the mountain. So we arrived at night curious about what would happen the next day. We were supposedly approaching the end of autumn in the region.

Against all logic, the Cape Town it maintained maximum temperatures well above 25º and days of clear skies in an anachronistic sequence that was too long that would lead to the drastic drought situation in which it remained.

Conquering Table Mountain

The new dawn confirmed another of those days of blue skies and unusual heat. We didn't even hesitate. We left the Sea Point Inn, hurriedly ate breakfast and got on the bus. Half an hour later, we were aboard the rotating cable car that led to the top of Table Mountain.

Table Mountain top access cable car, Cape Town, South Africa

The cable car with revolving cabins that connects the base to the top of Table Mountain

As you ascend, the cabin reveals the impressive panoramas at the foot of the mountain: the Lion's Head on the opposite side of the canyon.

Little by little, the houses of Cape Town increasing in size, with the CBD's skyscrapers standing out above the rest; the Waterfront area, its docks, Table Bay and, almost out of sight in silver, the silhouette of Robben Island where the South African Apartheid authorities held Nelson Mandela imprisoned.

After these atrocious times, the South Africa it is concerned with the appearance of a first-world social justice that should be even more unsuspected in a tourist context.

Contrary to what happens in so many cable cars across this planet, instead of people jostling each other and fighting over the windows facing the more photogenic side, the cabin rotated as it went up. The technology thus equally resolved the shared anxiety on board.

At the top, at more than 1000 meters – 1,086m is the maximum altitude of Table Mountain – the wind was blowing violently, but not enough or perhaps in a different direction than forcing the authorities to suspend cable car trips, sometimes for days the thread.

The Grand Scenarios and the Mythology of Africa Funds

From balconies that served as viewpoints, we were dazzled for the first time by the geological sumptuousness and complexity of the surrounding scenery. To the south, a long sandstone promontory tinted with shallow vegetation stretched to a distant marine horizon. It was the Cape Peninsula.

12 Apostles from Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa

The sandstone ridges and vegetation of the Twelve Apostles, leading up to the long Cape Peninsula that ends at the Cape of Good Hope and its Ponta do Cabo.

On one side, it found the South Atlantic, on a slope that began abruptly and then softened and gave way to the ocean in a gentle green slope.

On the opposite side, the peninsula faced False Bay, which Portuguese sailors began to call Cape Falso because, when returning from the Orient, in that intricate configuration of the depths of Africa, they often confused Cape Hangklip with Ponta do Cape of Good Hope, the most infamous and feared of the coastal points because they passed, despite the re-baptism of the authorship of Bartholomew Dias.

Despite the success of the pioneer crossing to the Indian Ocean, in their imaginations, Table Mountain, the Cape Peninsulathe Cape of Good Hope, Tip of the Cape and the furious storms that so often forced them to cross continued to justify a ghastly imagery.

Camões attributed it to the sorrow of Adamastor, one of the giants of Greek mythology, banished to Cape by the nymph Doris, for having fallen in love with his daughter Tethis.

For, second, Camões, Adamastor now appeared in the Cape domains in the form of a storm. Despite the success of Bartholomew Dias, continued for a long time to sink many of the ships that sought to cross from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.

No Weather Signals from Northwind

On that glorious day, we glimpsed no sign of the monster. Much closer, we detected the call “Back Table”, its twin peaks known as “Twelve Apostles” and the rounded beaches of Bantry Bay, Clifton and Camps Bay.

Glen Beach and Twelve Apostles, Cape Town, South Africa

Man inscribes artwork on the Glen Beach beach with the Twelve Apostles in the background

Also the Sea Point Bay where we were staying and the profusion of luxury villas and villas, some of the most valuable properties in the area. Cape Town.

Just below the balconies, indifferent to three mountaineers preparing a rappel descent, a colony of hyraxes fought the damp chill brought by the wind, absorbing the sun's heat behind a barrier of rocks. Out of nowhere, just as many hikers emerge from a hidden path.

They had followed the pioneering example of António de Saldanha – but a different path – and climbed the mountain on foot. This Portuguese, who believes himself to be of Castilian origin, was a captain and navigator who was part of the 1503 fleet of Afonso de Albuquerque.

On this expedition, he was responsible for taking the three ships he commanded to join the armada that had sailed ahead. Onward along the route, Saldanha and his men would patrol and prey on Arab trade in the Red Sea.

Saldanha and the First European Ascension

Not necessarily for the best reasons, Saldanha anchored at Mesa Bay and was the first European to ascend Table Mountain. Since his departure from Lisbon, the ships he commanded suffered from poor piloting.

In the eminence of the Cape, Saldanha had miscalculated his crossing and anchored in an early place. Confused by what was going on, he landed in the Table Bay area.

He climbed the adjacent mountain and named it Taboa do Cabo. From the top, you could see that the Point of the Cape of Good Hope it was to the south, yet to cross.

Visitor at the top of Table Mountain with Cape Town in the background, South Africa

Table Mountain Explorer expresses the sense of freedom and vastness felt at the top of Table Mountain.

Saldanha and the crew there supplied themselves with water, excavated a large cross that can be found in the vicinity of Lion's Head, and became involved in a small dispute with indigenous Khoikhoi, the dominant African ethnic group when the Europeans arrived. Saldanha suffered only minor injuries. He was able to return to the boat and continue his clumsy journey.

Currently, meetings with natives of Cape Town they are affable and recommend themselves. Both the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean, the navigation around Table Mountain, the climb to the mountain and the hikes on its plateau are made easy.

Even if the resident wildlife is far more prolific than the simple hiraxes that show themselves to newcomers.

In addition to these easygoing hyracoids, porcupines, lizards, turtles, mongooses and their arch-rival snakes of various species inhabit the mountain. Until 1990, baboons were also present. Today, its anti-tourist guerrilla actions are mainly centered on Ponta do Cabo.

A series of rails with different widths start from the front of the "Shop of the Top” and run along the top of the plateau.

We entered one that led inland to Maclear's Beacon, a pile of stones erected by the Irish physician-astronomer Sir Thomas Maclear in 1865 to help measure the curvature of the Earth.

From there, we cut to the vicinity of Devil's Peak and then to the northern precipice of Table Mountain, where the dizzying top of the cliffs once again reveals the houses of Cape Town, its Waterfront and the vast Table Bay.

The Mystic Sunset over the old End of the Earth

In this area, several groups stop and take photos and take too many too risky selfies, on pebbles that peek into the eminent abyss.

In the stretch that precedes the return to the cable car, with the sun starting to set to the west, we noticed the profusion of human silhouettes that used these pebbles as pedestals and were eternalized in that very memorable place. More than convinced when it came to the setting, we sat for a moment admiring its intriguing casual choreographies.

Figures of visitors from Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa

Figures of visitors sharing the rocky top of Table Mountain

But, we had planned to climb Lion's Head in time to enjoy the panoramic Table Mountain in the ultimate twilight. So we hurried down one of the last cable cars and pointed to the hill. By that time, a platoon of other trekkers were fighting for the two marked trails.

We make a mistake and go for the longest and most disingenuous. Error forces us to climb the mountain at a cruel pace. We reached the heights drenched in sweat and our hearts breaking into a laugh we thought humanly impossible. In any case, we were in the most central of the city's panoramic points.

We could walk around it and admire and photograph Table Mountain, from Devils Peak to the depths of the Cape Peninsula. Back, the houses of Cape Town, in all its diversity and richness, it was available and gained color and drama as the electric lighting and the warmed up streak of the afterglow hit it.

Table Mountain from the top of Lion's Head, Cape Town, South Africa

Evening surrounds Table Mountain, seen from the top of Lion's Head.

Until the darkness settled, we twirled on that lush lion's head over and over again, panting, exhausted, indecisive about what impressed us the most and we wanted to record such monstrous scenarios.

More information about Table Mountain and tips for discovering it on the Cape Town Tourism website (in English).

Ibo Island, Mozambique

Island of a Gone Mozambique

It was fortified in 1791 by the Portuguese who expelled the Arabs from the Quirimbas and seized their trade routes. It became the 2nd Portuguese outpost on the east coast of Africa and later the capital of the province of Cabo Delgado, Mozambique. With the end of the slave trade at the turn of the XNUMXth century and the passage from the capital to Porto Amélia, Ibo Island found itself in the fascinating backwater in which it is located.
Graaf-Reinet, South Africa

A Boer Spear in South Africa

In early colonial times, Dutch explorers and settlers were terrified of the Karoo, a region of great heat, great cold, great floods and severe droughts. Until the Dutch East India Company founded Graaf-Reinet there. Since then, the fourth oldest city in the rainbow nation it thrived at a fascinating crossroads in its history.
Ilha de Mozambique, Mozambique  

The Island of Ali Musa Bin Bique. Pardon... of Mozambique

With the arrival of Vasco da Gama in the extreme south-east of Africa, the Portuguese took over an island that had previously been ruled by an Arab emir, who ended up misrepresenting the name. The emir lost his territory and office. Mozambique - the molded name - remains on the resplendent island where it all began and also baptized the nation that Portuguese colonization ended up forming.
Cape Cross, Namíbia

The Most Turbulent of the African Colonies

Diogo Cão landed in this cape of Africa in 1486, installed a pattern and turned around. The immediate coastline to the north and south was German, South African, and finally Namibian. Indifferent to successive transfers of nationality, one of the largest seal colonies in the world has maintained its hold there and animates it with deafening marine barks and endless tantrums.
Lüderitz, Namibia

Wilkommen in Africa

Chancellor Bismarck has always disdained overseas possessions. Against his will and all odds, in the middle of the Race for Africa, merchant Adolf Lüderitz forced Germany to take over an inhospitable corner of the continent. The homonymous city prospered and preserves one of the most eccentric heritages of the Germanic empire.
Saint Lucia, South Africa

An Africa as Wild as Zulu

On the eminence of the coast of Mozambique, the province of KwaZulu-Natal is home to an unexpected South Africa. Deserted beaches full of dunes, vast estuarine swamps and hills covered with fog fill this wild land also bathed by the Indian Ocean. It is shared by the subjects of the always proud Zulu nation and one of the most prolific and diverse fauna on the African continent.
Cape of Good Hope - Cape of Good Hope NP, South Africa

On the edge of the Old End of the World

We arrived where great Africa yielded to the domains of the “Mostrengo” Adamastor and the Portuguese navigators trembled like sticks. There, where Earth was, after all, far from ending, the sailors' hope of rounding the tenebrous Cape was challenged by the same storms that continue to ravage there.
Malealea, Lesotho

Life in the African Kingdom of Heaven

Lesotho is the only independent state located entirely above XNUMX meters. It is also one of the countries at the bottom of the world ranking of human development. Its haughty people resist modernity and all the adversities on the magnificent but inhospitable top of the Earth that befell them.
Elmina, Ghana

The First Jackpot of the Portuguese Discoveries

In the century. XVI, Mina generated to the Crown more than 310 kg of gold annually. This profit aroused the greed of the The Netherlands and from England, which succeeded one another in the place of the Portuguese and promoted the slave trade to the Americas. The surrounding village is still known as Elmina, but today fish is its most obvious wealth.
Amboseli National Park, Mount Kilimanjaro, Normatior Hill
Safari
Amboseli National Park, Kenya

A Gift from the Kilimanjaro

The first European to venture into these Masai haunts was stunned by what he found. And even today, large herds of elephants and other herbivores roam the pastures irrigated by the snow of Africa's biggest mountain.
Braga or Braka or Brakra in Nepal
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 6th – Braga, Nepal

The Ancient Nepal of Braga

Four days of walking later, we slept at 3.519 meters from Braga (Braka). Upon arrival, only the name is familiar to us. Faced with the mystical charm of the town, arranged around one of the oldest and most revered Buddhist monasteries on the Annapurna circuit, we continued our journey there. acclimatization with ascent to Ice Lake (4620m).
hacienda mucuyche, Yucatan, Mexico, canal
Architecture & Design
Yucatan, Mexico

Among Haciendas and Cenotes, through the History of Yucatan

Around the capital Merida, for every old hacienda henequenera there's at least one cenote. As happened with the semi-recovered Hacienda Mucuyché, together, they form some of the most sublime places in southeastern Mexico.

Adventure
Volcanoes

Mountains of Fire

More or less prominent ruptures in the earth's crust, volcanoes can prove to be as exuberant as they are capricious. Some of its eruptions are gentle, others prove annihilating.
Ceremonies and Festivities
Apia, Western Samoa

Fia Fia – High Rotation Polynesian Folklore

From New Zealand to Easter Island and from here to Hawaii, there are many variations of Polynesian dances. Fia Fia's Samoan nights, in particular, are enlivened by one of the more fast-paced styles.
Singapore, Success and Monotony Island
Cities
Singapore

The Island of Success and Monotony

Accustomed to planning and winning, Singapore seduces and recruits ambitious people from all over the world. At the same time, it seems to bore to death some of its most creative inhabitants.
Meal
Markets

A Market Economy

The law of supply and demand dictates their proliferation. Generic or specific, covered or open air, these spaces dedicated to buying, selling and exchanging are expressions of life and financial health.
China's occupation of Tibet, Roof of the World, The occupying forces
Culture
Lhasa, Tibet

The Sino-Demolition of the Roof of the World

Any debate about sovereignty is incidental and a waste of time. Anyone who wants to be dazzled by the purity, affability and exoticism of Tibetan culture should visit the territory as soon as possible. The Han civilizational greed that moves China will soon bury millenary Tibet.
4th of July Fireworks-Seward, Alaska, United States
Sport
Seward, Alaska

The Longest 4th of July

The independence of the United States is celebrated, in Seward, Alaska, in a modest way. Even so, the 4th of July and its celebration seem to have no end.
Jeep crosses Damaraland, Namibia
Traveling
damaraland, Namíbia

Namibia On the Rocks

Hundreds of kilometers north of Swakopmund, many more of Sossuvlei's iconic dunes, Damaraland is home to deserts interspersed with red rocky hills, the young nation's highest mountain and ancient rock art. the settlers South Africans they named this region after the Damara, one of the Namibian ethnic groups. Only these and other inhabitants prove that it remains on Earth.
Unusual bathing
Ethnic

south of Belize

The Strange Life in the Black Caribbean Sun

On the way to Guatemala, we see how the proscribed existence of the Garifuna people, descendants of African slaves and Arawak Indians, contrasts with that of several much more airy bathing areas.

sunlight photography, sun, lights
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Natural Light (Part 2)

One Sun, So Many Lights

Most travel photos are taken in sunlight. Sunlight and weather form a capricious interaction. Learn how to predict, detect and use at its best.
Entrance porch in Ellikkalla, Uzbekistan
History
Uzbekistan

Journey through the Uzbekistan Pseudo-Roads

Centuries passed. Old and run-down Soviet roads ply deserts and oases once traversed by caravans from the Silk RoadSubject to their yoke for a week, we experience every stop and incursion into Uzbek places, into scenic and historic road rewards.
Boats on ice, Hailuoto Island, Finland.
Islands
Hailuoto, Finland

A Refuge in the Gulf of Bothnia

During winter, the island of Hailuoto is connected to the rest of Finland by the country's longest ice road. Most of its 986 inhabitants esteem, above all, the distance that the island grants them.
Correspondence verification
Winter White
Rovaniemi, Finland

From the Finnish Lapland to the Arctic. A Visit to the Land of Santa

Fed up with waiting for the bearded old man to descend down the chimney, we reverse the story. We took advantage of a trip to Finnish Lapland and passed through its furtive home.
silhouette and poem, Cora coralina, Goias Velho, Brazil
Literature
Goiás Velho, Brazil

The Life and Work of a Marginal Writer

Born in Goiás, Ana Lins Bretas spent most of her life far from her castrating family and the city. Returning to its origins, it continued to portray the prejudiced mentality of the Brazilian countryside
savuti, botswana, elephant-eating lions
Nature
Savuti, Botswana

Savuti's Elephant-Eating Lions

A patch of the Kalahari Desert dries up or is irrigated depending on the region's tectonic whims. In Savuti, lions have become used to depending on themselves and prey on the largest animals in the savannah.
Mother Armenia Statue, Yerevan, Armenia
Autumn
Yerevan, Armenia

A Capital between East and West

Heiress of the Soviet civilization, aligned with the great Russia, Armenia allows itself to be seduced by the most democratic and sophisticated ways of Western Europe. In recent times, the two worlds have collided in the streets of your capital. From popular and political dispute, Yerevan will dictate the new course of the nation.
Herd in Manang, Annapurna Circuit, Nepal
Natural Parks
Annapurna Circuit: 8th Manang, Nepal

Manang: the Last Acclimatization in Civilization

Six days after leaving Besisahar we finally arrived in Manang (3519m). Located at the foot of the Annapurna III and Gangapurna Mountains, Manang is the civilization that pampers and prepares hikers for the ever-dreaded crossing of Thorong La Gorge (5416 m).
, Mexico, city of silver and gold, homes over tunnels
UNESCO World Heritage
Guanajuato, Mexico

The City that Shines in All Colors

During the XNUMXth century, it was the city that produced the most silver in the world and one of the most opulent in Mexico and colonial Spain. Several of its mines are still active, but the impressive wealth of Guanuajuato lies in the multicolored eccentricity of its history and secular heritage.
Ooty, Tamil Nadu, Bollywood Scenery, Heartthrob's Eye
Characters
Ooty, India

In Bollywood's Nearly Ideal Setting

The conflict with Pakistan and the threat of terrorism made filming in Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh a drama. In Ooty, we see how this former British colonial station took the lead.
View of Casa Iguana, Corn islands, pure caribbean, nicaragua
Beaches
Corn Islands - Islas del Maíz , Nicaragua

pure caribbean

Perfect tropical settings and genuine local life are the only luxuries available in the so-called Corn Islands or Corn Islands, an archipelago lost in the Central American confines of the Caribbean Sea.
Promise?
Religion
Goa, India

To Goa, Quickly and in Strength

A sudden longing for Indo-Portuguese tropical heritage makes us travel in various transports but almost non-stop, from Lisbon to the famous Anjuna beach. Only there, at great cost, were we able to rest.
Flam Railway composition below a waterfall, Norway.
On Rails
Nesbyen to Flam, Norway

Flam Railway: Sublime Norway from the First to the Last Station

By road and aboard the Flam Railway, on one of the steepest railway routes in the world, we reach Flam and the entrance to the Sognefjord, the largest, deepest and most revered of the Scandinavian fjords. From the starting point to the last station, this monumental Norway that we have unveiled is confirmed.
Society
Cemeteries

the last address

From the grandiose tombs of Novodevichy, in Moscow, to the boxed Mayan bones of Pomuch, in the Mexican province of Campeche, each people flaunts its own way of life. Even in death.
Daily life
Arduous Professions

the bread the devil kneaded

Work is essential to most lives. But, certain jobs impose a degree of effort, monotony or danger that only a few chosen ones can measure up to.
Masai Mara Reservation, Masai Land Travel, Kenya, Masai Convivial
Wildlife
Masai Mara, Kenya

A Journey Through the Masai Lands

The Mara savannah became famous for the confrontation between millions of herbivores and their predators. But, in a reckless communion with wildlife, it is the Masai humans who stand out there.
The Sounds, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand
Scenic Flights
Fiordland, New Zealand

The Fjords of the Antipodes

A geological quirk made the Fiordland region the rawest and most imposing in New Zealand. Year after year, many thousands of visitors worship the sub-domain slashed between Te Anau and Milford Sound.
PT EN ES FR DE IT