The extraordinary story of two people who chose the mountain over the city - and built a life in a quiet hollow where nature kept them safe.

For most people, Table Mountain is a backdrop - a postcard or a hiking spot, a place to visit and leave behind. But for Anselm Sauls and his partner, Fozia Kammies, it has been home for 11 years. Not metaphorically. Literally home.

Their shelter is a hollow beneath thick bushes, tucked behind a long fallen log where a small stream threads past. It's a place they found not by accident but almost by instinct - a place that, in their telling, revealed itself.

"The mountain protects you," Anselm says. "The city is dangerous. Here, if you come with an open heart, nature will teach you, not klap you."

His logic is firm, unquestioned, part spiritual, part hard-earned experience. After more than a decade living rough on the slopes above Cape Town, he and Fozia know every rustle, every bird call, every rise of wind. "Your ears open here," she explains. "You can sleep, but you hear everything."

Both have come a long road to reach this hollow in the trees.

From shelters to the slopes

Anselm's life has never followed a straight line. Born in East London, grew up in Mitchells Plain, raised by a loving but complicated family with...