Climbing the Sixth Kingdom

After a couple hours drive outside Cape Town, Anthony and I arrived in Montagu. It's a small quaint town with an odd mix of beautiful B&B's for upscale, touring tourists and farms converted to campgrounds for the outdoors persons, all set in a valley buffeted by craggy mountains. Here there is hiking and mountain biking galour to be found. But the real reason we were here: this is a sport climber's mecca.
I stayed in a small open-air barn converted to a dorm while most were camping in tents. The first night, Anthony and I had dinner at a friends house. It quickly dawned on me that this group of South Africans and Europeans (mostly German and French) were serious hard-core climbers. They talked extensively about climbing, dropping names and terms I had bever heard of, giving me an eye into the climber's culture. Most of them had been climbing for years, if not decades. A quick flip through the climbing guide book for this region and you realize that half the people pictured on the rock faces are the very same people you are eating with. Needless to say, it was a great leg-up experience for me in a sport I have become increasingly interested in over the last year.
Over the next couple days, I followed them out to their 'projects'. These are specific climbs they had been eyeing, studying the sequences and crux moves so as to finally redpoint them - complete start to finish without falling. I tried my hand at a 5.13d Norene has been working on - I barely made it to the second bolt before falling, while Norene was at the crux about 15 bolts up! Later on, I went with Dou, Vanessa, Natasha, Simon and Ben to the Waterworld crag. They did several 20 meter warmups which were all 5.10 to 5.11 climbs. I managed to complete a 5.10b and a 5.10d - my highest level yet! (Although, I cheated a little on the 5.10d having to pull up on one of the bolts.) Of course they all then moved on the serious 5.13+ routes. I just watched!
It was a fantastic weekend of climbing, grilling on the fire (called 'braai' here), hiking and camping. Monday evening they all left to return to the jobs that support their habit. By Tuesday, the campsite was nearly desolate and I spent the day laying down some good hikes into the mountains. The Cape region of South Africa is truly unique in terms of the plant and animal environment. As Anthony informed me, of the world's 6 kingdoms, the Cape region is a kingdom all its own defined by the unique composition of flora and fauna. I do not know enough to competently describe it in proper detail but it does ring some bells from 7th grade science class. I presume it this type of biological diversity and geologic nature that makes hiking through here quite different from anywhere else I have hiked. Towards the mountain tops it all seems incredibly arid and dry lending to the incredibly waxy and oily plants that give off an array of aromas. Every 10 meters or so I would detect a new smell - similar to those of lavendar, sage, eucolyptus, etc. It was like walking through a giant herb garden. Then as you drop down from the slopes just a few 100 meters you are plunged into a narrow strip of thick vegetation in the gorges that are more tropical in nature. All a very stark contrast in such small area.
Montagu itself is quite small and can be explored in a few hours. It is a very layed-back slow town. Sometimes things are open, sometime not. There seems to be no rhyme or reason. It is also the place where I am beginning to learn some hard lessons about traveling in Africa. Being this is one of the most developed regions (South Africa) of Africa the transportation sucks - big time. I am now a little stuck here. As much as I like this place I was ready to go yesterday as the clock is ticking. The first bus out of here doesnt pass until Thursday morning. Currently, I am reassessing all my plans for traveling Africa as getting around on my own and not on some giant touristed overlander truck is looking to be quite challenging. Transportation here is night and day different from China! Another difference and challenge has been internet access! It is difficult to find and when I do find it there is an inverse relationship between bandwidth and price per minute. (i.e., the more expensive it is, the slower it is.) So heads up: My posts will be less frequent and those I do get out will be longer in nature!

And on that note, this post is already too long. Next stop, Plettenberg Bay.