The best job in the World

Table Mountain on Monday 02.08.10

View down Platteklip Gorge - the easy way

What a way to spend a Monday morning, guiding some visitors to Cape Town up Table Mountain - some days I have to pinch myself to remember that I am actually working.

Tour guiding can become “just another job” if one is not careful. It’s usually the unfortunate scheduled guides that fall into the trap of the worlds best job becoming a chore.

I can, however, report after seven years as a tour guide I have my off days. They are fairly rare but they do happen – that’s life – you take the good with the bad.” Life on lifes” terms as some wise sage once said.

Also quite rare are nightmare clients. So often one hears stories about clients from hell who cant be pleased – I think that problem people attract each other ( he says ,holding thumbs, so as not to jinx things, because some days I can be a problem person….just ask my beloved family !!)

Yesterday I had some delightful young people from the USA who had a great time hiking the mountain with me. We discussed history, economics, flowers, restaurants, politics and the environment amongst other things. It was a great day – beautiful weather, easy going clients and a great place.

We left Kirstenbosch Botanical gardens and climbed up Nursery Ravine – we had originally considered Skeleton Gorge for the ascent but opted for Nursery as I figured it might have been a tad wet as it sometimes gets in the Cape Winter. The truth is that the dreaded Cape winter hasn’t really lived up to its “Cape of Storms” image this year and there wasn’t much water anyway.

The North Americans visitors thought it was quite funny how us Capetonians bundle up in our snow suits when the temperature drops below 10 celsius – interesting that……… the way temperature is relative.

Temperature aside. It was a spectacular day and we made it to the Smuts track in about 1.5 hours ( despite my good intentions – I always forget to note the time) and stopped for a moment to take in the view from Breakfast Rock.  The Smuts track is the well trodden foot path from the top of Skeleton gorge to Maclears beacon, which is the highest point on the mountain. Local legend has it that General Jannie Smuts, after whom the path is named, could walk it faster when he was seventy five than most people can do when they are thirty. Smuts of course had a lifetime of training – he was active service in both world wars as well as the Boer ( South African) War.

Looking south from Smuts Track - the longer more challenging, exciting and satisfying way to the top

We were reminded of Smuts’s ilk when we came across one of Cape Towns wizened old age hikers. They are a breed apart – some of them in their eighties and still walk the mountain with their 40 year old backpacks, polished boots and the calf muscles of a rugby player. The likes of the late Alf Morris who taught me geography in the eighties and Clem Barker who retired 20 years ago !! - these old guys and gals keep the spirit of the mountain walker alive.

Much to my dismay and embarrassment, I took a wrong turn just after we encountered the old mountain hiker with his polished boots. We greeted each other with a cheery good morning and continued along our respective ways – me with my group of young people, him with an equally wrinkled hiking partner. 

In my typical inattentive way, I missed the turn. A few minutes later I realised my mistake and we turned around, me with my tail between my legs and slunk back in the right direction.

Now a tour guide has got to always be up beat, and as the old timers in the game say: “ If you cant dazzle them with brilliance , then baffle them with bullshit”…….so here we are walking back and as we come around the corner, to my horror, the old man of the mountain is sitting on a rock having lunch.

Baffle baffle baffle I am thinking…what can I say…..

I shout ahead to them : “ Hope you’ve got a cup of tea for us….. ha ha”

And his reply……: “ No……but I have a map” he smiled, a tooth missing - offering the map to me

Demolished……no where to hide.......I mumbled something and walked on.

Despite the bullshit mantra mentioned earlier, I also believe in the saying: If there is an elephant in the room, don’t pretend it’s not there”

Along with my good natured clients we had a chuckle at my expense as we continued the walk. We saw the old boy a bit later at the upper cable station. I was having an overpriced coffee, he was drinking out his dented aluminium water bottle – I’ve got a long way to go and a lot to learn.