Rock Climbing

Above you is a finger hold, jutting just an inch from the cliff face.

The rock face taunts you. If you could only reach me, it says, you could get to that next foothold. You jump to reach it, pushing up with all your force. It is a desperate move. Your finger-hold grip slips. The sudden weightlessness and the short rush of wind around you is overwhelming as you fall.

Or, you would fall a rather painful 20 meters to a rocky ground.

The person below you holds the rope tightly, right arm down, left arm up, so that the rope bends around the clasp to provide maximal friction.

And you hang there in your harness, in mid air. Time to try for that ledge again.

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My friend, Dan Bressler bought a land rover here from a University friend of his who studied at Tulane with him. Four of us went rock climbing at Silvermine las t Thursday, part of Table Mountain national park, near Muizenberg. It was quite exciting. There's basically no regulation or oversight here on safety precautions, which can be kind of concerning. Unfortunately, Laura lost her camera, so no photos! :-(.

The Bike

The bane of my existence. The mangy whore. The disease ridden ingrate. I mean my bike, of course.

My bike has had three punctures so far. All of them have been in the rear tire. The first time, the tire was replaced with a new one, the second time it was patched, and after the third puncture it's been sitting outside the dorms with it's lovely puncture wound since mid March.

So today I walked the 5 km down to the bike shop in Claremont to get my bike's rear tired replaced (the third repair). Fixed fine, works fine, no leaks, and I ride it away from the shop.

I ride ten minutes and suddenly I hear kuh-lunk, kuh-lunk, kuh-lunk. Oh, fuck. I walk it back to the sop and get there ten minutes before it closes. The fourth puncture, rear tire again.

It's back to the bike shop again...