South Africa Part One: The Arrival

I arrived in Cape Town after 25 hours of air travel time and realized that Kevin (who was supposed to meet me at the airport) was not there. I cabbed it to the Green Elephant and eventually met up with Kevin. Kevin said something to the effect of "blah blah blah Ryan's fault blah blah blah climbing." We picked up Peter, Justin, and Mike the following morning and made our way north to the beautiful Rocklands. My days generally start and end the same way... laying in bed listening to the sounds of Toto's song "Africa" coming from the kitchen provided by Peter and Mike, don't laugh... it's cool, and so far it hasn't gotten old. I think it's our theme song. As we await the arrival of our friends (Beth, Randy, Lyn, Paul, Cam, Amna and Alan) we have been acquainting ourselves with some of the various climbing areas. We have now seen the Sassies and the Roadside. It was nice to see some taller boulder problems there since Rocklands has been rumored to be quite low. There will be lots of killer videos for you all to watch once I find a fast enough internet connect to upload them. I'll try to upload some smaller files of them for you in the meantime.

As for the mosquitos. . . I've been bit once, only while sleeping. There aren't any to speak of at the climbing areas. No deet needed Lyn.

Image to leave you with: The five of us walking in slow motion on the trails carrying crashpads to the beautiful boulders in Rocklands. The sun is shining down and smiles fill our faces as we all look at each other and laugh (slow motion still) and Toto is playing. Toto is cool dammit!