One day while I was studying in Cape Town, a group of friends and I decided to go on a hike. The hike we decided to do was about an hour to a cave on the side of Table Mountain and an hour back down to the base of the mountain. We were a group of 9 people, and one of my friends said they knew which way to go.

Table Mountain has many different trails that can be either nice and short or extremely long and difficult. As we started up the trail there were many times where the trail split and we had to decide which way to go. Sometimes we would try to make the decision together based on what made sense for our destination, but mostly we just followed our friend that was leading us. Two and a half hours into the hike we figured out that we were not going the right way. Conveniently, we met another hiker coming down the mountain that told us we were in the completely wrong place, but we were about 20 minutes from the peak of Devil's Peak, which is the highest point in Table Mountain National Park and is the most challenging hike to do.

We decided to keep going because we were so close to the top, and we might as well do it since we made it that far already. Once we got to the top, we were greeted with the most beautiful view of Cape Town and the rest of the mountains. The sun was setting, which meant that we had to get down the mountain as fast as possible because we could get lost coming down, and we were always told not to hike at night. As we quickly came down the mountain, and saw the most beautiful sunset, and made it to the bottom right as it was getting dark.

We came into the hike thinking it was going to be short and easy, but ended up achieving a different goal, which was a lot harder but also more fulfilling.