Abseiling in Cape Town

Ok, so fun might not be the first word that comes to my mind when describing my latest experience.  To be honest, the fact that I didn’t piss myself might be more of an achievement than actually making it down the 112m drop that is the highest commercial abseil in South Africa.

Sometimes I wonder whether I have it in me to be a truly hardcore adventurer, or if I just have a truly hardcore adventurer “spirit” so to speak.  I think you’ll know which category you fall under, when you are at the peak of your next adventure and you wonder why in god’s name you aren’t at home in bed drinking tea like normal people.  Because that’s what I was thinking the moment my feet went over my head and I was told to loosen the slack on the rope and start jumping down rock face over 1000m up.

It’s a weird thing though, adventures like that.  You feel near death, want to cry, want to scream, want to enjoy every minute..and when you reach the bottom you find yourself wanting more.  The contrast of those emotions that happen during and directly after make you wonder if you’ve lost your mind.

Looking at the moment from another viewpoint, you wonder if you’ll ever get too old for this, if you’ll ever feel like the adventurous spirit will die off at some point and you’ll be happy knowing the rest of your life is for tea drinking.  And just when you think this “spirit” is limited by time, and you have to get all your adventuring out when you’re young…you find the next abseiler down the cliff is a 50 year old woman jumping down the mountain right after you with a glorious smile on her face.