Devil's Peak Part II

This afternoon David & Chris (The Memphis boys), and I decided to hike up Devil's Peak again. We wanted to get to the top but we knew that was at least a 6 hour hike total and we didn’t end up leave until almost 4pm. I was talking to my Dad just before we left and he expressed concern about us leaving so late and also advised us to bring a flashlight. Apparently parents know best even when they are on the other side of the world. The hike up was extremely tiring and strenuous. Some of it was sheer rock climbing. When we got to the top, it was sunset. We watched the sun disappear and started to get a little worried about climbing down in the dark. The only light we had was from Chris' iphone. It was now pitch dark and we were slowly climbing down the rocks. To be honest I was terrified coming down that mountain especially after taking a spill on my back. After a few more hours, we got to a familiar landmark, the Rhodes Memorial which is pretty close to our house. There was a man lying down at the memorial, which seemed peculiar but we didn’t think much of it. As we got closer to the bottom, there was a group of five or six men blocking the path and chanting things. It was getting louder and louder as we approached them. They could have been completely harmless but it also could have been the worst possible thing to happen to us in Cape Town. The only thing running through our minds was the hundreds of times we have been told not to be anywhere isolated after dark. Long story short we ran the other direction as fast as we could. We found a big fence that we jumped over. I had no desire to jump from that far up but didn’t really have a choice and landed far from gracefully. We finally made it to the highway and walked home from there. We have no idea what that group was doing but it could have been a cult or some type of initiation that we had no aspiration to get in the middle of. We will definitely never do that hike again in the dark. On a positive note, there were amazing views when I was brave enough to look down!