Lone Rucksack

The plane landed in Turkey in the dark— an 11 hour overnight flight from Cape Town that ended at 4 AM in Istanbul, with 12 hours to go until the next flight to Montenegro. A little old man in a blue taxi drove me into the heart of the city, old cobblestone roads winding into the distance pocketed with tiny yellow lights illuminating still open bars, short round stools and miniature tables at the edges with the scent of cigarette smoke in the air.

After a few hours of sleep in a small hotel, I walked for hours around the city in the hot sun under the gaze of enormous mosques and stone architecture, swarms of hopeful birds waiting for fish on the river, wandering through markets that smelled of peach and saffron and apricots, sipping fresh pomegranate juice.

Cape Town magic in the mountains remembering sunnier days on the 13 Peaks Challenge.

“I am alone, I thought, and they are everybody.”
―Fyodor Dostoevsky

Day One of the challenge: Signal Hill to Lions Head, descending then ascending again to Kloof Corner, across the front of Table Mountain on the Contour path where we passed under waterfalls and ended our time at the Platteklip gorge path, then headed down to Tafelburg road. The best adventure partners on the mountain in and a new trail-name: Mr. Dassie.