The Luckiest Unlucky Girl

Day Six: Mosaic Sanctuary

      It´s kind of funny how the accommodations I liked the best so far were where I felt the sickest. I haven´t really felt fatigue from my treatment on this trip, which is good, although Jon and I have taken our fair share of naps in Pepe´s car. However, I got the stomach bug of all stomach bugs during the first night I was at Mosaic. I couldn´t keep anything down.  The worst part was that I felt this horrible cramping in my stomach that would not stop and was very painful. All I could do was lay on the bed and moan.

Jon and I were supposed to go to the nearby town of Gaansbaai that morning to do some shark cage diving. Who are we kidding… I never had any intentions of jumping in the cold ocean water and looking at a great white shark swimming around my cage with five other people. Hell no! I was firmly intending to stay on the boat the whole time and take pictures. So really only Jon was planning on diving with the sharks. Unfortunately since the wind has been so bad on the Western Cape a single shark hasn´t been sighted for the past 15 days. The passageway between the offshore seal colony and the coastline normally teems with Great Whites at this time of year. Due to the wind and rough seas, though, the sharks have gone somewhere else. So unfortunately, the company cancelled the shark dive. Probably for the better because there´s no way I could have gone on a boat that morning with rocky seas. But I know Jon was disappointed.

Luckily Mosaic Sanctuary is an all-inclusive lodge. They had two activities that day that we would probably have missed had we gone shark diving. I vowed that I would not miss either of these activities even though my stomach was killing me. I expelled all the nastiness I could and then took a few tablets of Immodium, probiotics, and Pepto Bismol pills. I hoped that would stabilize me so I could go on the morning excursion. The guide drove us in the bouncy safari jeep through the hills and up over some sand dunes to get us to our own private beach.

Once we climbed over the tallest sand dune I felt like I had exhausted every last bit of energy I had, so I simply lay down on the beach while Jon took off down the coast to photograph the bird life.

Unfortunately, the wind was so bad that the sand was whipping me in the face, mouth, legs, arms: everywhere! The wind and sand wouldn´t let up… and it hurt. I was ready to go back to the lodge and lay down. Before I could do that though, I had to find my husband who was nowhere in sight. The other guests were also ready to go. I took off walking along the coastline to try and find him. About twenty minutes later I spotted a faint outline of a person walking towards us. It was Jon of course. He had lost track of the time while taking photos.

Anyway, we eventually made it back to the lodge before I had to go to the bathroom. I skipped lunch because I was feeling really bad again and cramping. I lay on the comfortable bed with my hands on my abdomen in the hopes that I would feel better before the afternoon activity. Well I didn´t really feel better, but there was no way I was going to miss driving a Four Wheeler (called quad bikes here in South Africa) up and down the sandy hills around the lagoon. The guide drove us to the other lodge on the property that had a few self-serve cottages that families could stay in and look out at the beautiful scenery. Jon wanted to photograph the birds and I wanted to sit on a picnic bench in the shade and feel somewhat alive before I got on the 4×4.

I had a few bites of a banana and was able to keep that down so I declared I was feeling well enough to do the four wheeling with the other guests. It was exhilarating! Zooming around the rocky terrain on a motorized vehicle was a thrill. Hills you truly didn´t think you could get up were yours if you simply held down the gas throttle hard enough.

It got a little too bumpy for my stomach as we drove around on the potholed grass near the lake, but I willed myself to feel better since I was having so much fun. It was far better than shark diving, so we both agreed that it was a blessing in disguise that we missed the sharks and went quad biking instead.

The staff at Mosaic was so nice to me all day and kept asking how I was feeling while stocking our fridge with bottle after bottle of water and ginger ale.   I was able to eat a bit of dinner that night which is great, because it was absolutely delicious. We had a goat cheese and beet salad, as well as a beautifully cooked fillet with Madagascar pepper sauce and apple pie. After my few bites of dinner I headed back to our room to lie down some more and wait for my stomach to expel the delicious food. After it had done so, I took more Immodium pills and hoped I would feel better in the morning.

Day Two: Historical Cape Town

As previously stated, Jon and I woke up late on our second day in Cape Town, making sure that we could be happy and active tourists for at least half a day. We missed breakfast and instead went to the waterfront pub for a burger and some fish and chips. It was just what I needed to bring me back to health. We contemplated taking the cable car up Table Mountain since the winds weren´t too bad (at least not gale force as they had been pretty much the entire time we were in the city). However, we decided to wait for the winds to die down, and instead headed to the free walking tour of downtown.

We saw a lot of incredible historical sites and our guide did a really great job explaining recent South African history. The tour started in Green Market Square, a former trading market for fruits and vegetables that now serves as a souvenir market. We headed then to St. George´s Church where Desmond Tutu, a black preacher who was named archbishop of Cape Town by the all-white congregational leaders of the church. The church leaders didn´t believe in apartheid and appointed Tutu, a black man, in a position of power so that they could fight against apartheid through the messages in his sermon. To this day, Tutu still preaches in that church when he is not in hospital. We also visited the gardens planted in the middle of town by the Dutch East India Company, as well as the presidential palace and the Houses of Parliament.   South Africa actually has three seats of government: the executive capital is in Pretoria, the legislative branch in Cape Town, and the judicial in Bloemfontaine. The main capital is really Pretoria, but when Parliament is in session, the government officials travel to Cape Town and stay there for a few months.

Following the Houses of Parliament, we headed to City Hall, which was a very                     impressive building, modeled after the Houses of Parliament in London with the tower clock. Nelson Mandela gave his first speech after being freed on the steps of City Hall. Many people came to watch his speech, but most whites stayed away because they thought that Mandela´s freedom meant that they would soon experience reverse apartheid or an uprising of some sort. Miraculously, that never occurred, thanks to Mandela´s messages of forgiveness.

We ended our tour there in front of the Castle of Good Hope, the oldest Dutch building in the city. It wasn´t really what you would think of as a castle but it had a moat and gate and ramparts up high with cannons to protect the city. Jon and I didn´t spend much time there because I was busy trying to hold my hat onto my head.   Due to the wind we decided not to go up Table Mountain at all that day, but save it for the next day.

We headed back to the waterfront where Jon and I decided to split up to visit separate things. He headed to the Two Oceans Aquarium where he took amazing pictures of jellyfish, sharks, and other creatures that live under the water. I, instead, went to the traveling Titanic Artifact exhibit located next door in the Watershed. Being a little bit obsessed with the Titanic while growing up, I really enjoyed the exhibit. Upon entry they give you a replica ticket to the Titanic and on the back you are given an identity of a passenger, including their age, their reason for traveling, who they traveled with, etc. At the end of the exhibit you find out if your passenger survived or died. The kids really found that quite interesting, as did I. The exhibit was amazing: they had so much information about the ship, the different classes of passengers, the passengers themselves, and the survival stories from the sinking. They had artifacts that had been brought up from the ship such as porcelain dishes, hair ornaments, jewelry, postcards, etc. It was fascinating how those items were cleaned and cared for after their time spent on the bottom of the ocean. There was even an iceberg available for you to touch so that you could feel how cold the water was. And since icebergs are fresh water and salt water has a lower freezing temperature, the seawater that the passengers jumped into was even colder. It´s amazing that anyone survived at all: most people didn´t last even a few minutes in that freezing water. What I was most impressed with was how similar the actors in the Titanic movie looked like the actual historical characters pictured in the exhibit. It was a great experience, especially if you love the movie like I do!

For dinner, Jon and I headed to Willoughby and Co., which I had read we had to go to. It was a little different than I envisioned because it was inside a mall and there was basically no ambience. It was very crowded and lively though- Jon and I had to sit at the sushi bar because there was no space anywhere else. We had the Namibian oysters as recommended by my guide book but Jon didn´t really like them because they were too big, like Gulf Oysters. I liked them, but didn´t think they were all that special. What the restaurant is really good at is their sushi. The rolls were creative and the fish very fresh, even though the pieces were almost too large to put in your mouth. Overall, though- a tasty meal and we were happy to catch up on a little sleep afterwards.

*I tried to upload photos but our lodge’s internet is very slow.  Hopefully it will be faster the next place and you can get visuals to go with the writing

Kirstenbosch Gardens and Robben Island

We slept in a little on our first day in Cape Town. My stomach, which never really feels great, was particularly rocky this morning. It would only calm down after three Pepto Bismol pills, which is extreme- even for me. But I was not going to let my stomach prevent me from enjoying my day, especially since we had to give up a half day in Cape Town yesterday due to the delayed flight.

The first thing Jon and I did was walk down to the clock tower on the waterfront in order to secure tickets to Robben Island. We were luckily able to get on the 3:00 tour that afternoon. Sometimes, during peak tourist season, the tickets are all sold out and you have to buy them several days in advance. We had some time on our hands before the tour and so we decided to spend it visiting Kirstenbosch Gardens. The gardens, a must-see while in Cape Town, are located on the eastern slope of Table Mountain. The gardens were founded in 1913 to preserve South African plant life and are currently a World Heritage Site. Once we disappeared around the side of the mountain in our taxi, the scenery began to change. Although we were very close to the city center, the mountain separating the two zones allow the gardens to be isolated from humanity and give visitors the sense that they are alone in nature. In fact, although Cape Town is quite large it feels small because the mountains separate all the different areas of the city into seemingly isolated neighborhoods.

Kirstenbosch Gardens cover quite a large area and have lots of really neat things to visit. We really enjoyed the Tree Canopy walk, as well as the sculpture garden. They even have a part of the gardens that has statues of dinosaurs amid the types of plant life that would have existed in that era. Kirstenbosch is on a hill, so we had to climb quite high to see some of the over 6000 native plants and birds, of which Proteas bushes, silver trees, and Erica flowers are the most numerous.  We also stopped to photograph the large ibises and sugar birds that had really long scissor like tails that stood out as they hopped from bush to bush. As we continued to climb closer towards the mountain and away from the others at the gardens, I became quite overwhelmed with emotion. The sun was shining, the view of the city down below us, the fragrances from the flowers and the peacefulness all culminated in me breaking down sobbing for absolutely no reason. “What if I had never made it here?” I asked my husband who was incredulous as to why I was suddenly crying in the middle of all that beauty. He simply rubbed my back and told me “No more tears are necessary”, and luckily I snapped out of my state quickly.

We left the gardens and headed back to the Waterfront where we grabbed a quick lunch at one of the many cafes and then headed to board the ferry to Robben Island. Robben Island is famous for being the island prison that housed Nelson Mandela for over 18 years. The ferry ride over is about thirty minutes long and can be quite rough when the waves are choppy, as we discovered on the way home. Before Jon and I came to South Africa we watched a lot of movies like “Power of One”, “Cry Freedom”, and “Goodbye Bufana” and read a few books about apartheid such as “Kaffir Boy” so we would know more about the country´s history and be more informed before we saw all of these incredibly important sights. From 1947-1994, the white Afrikaaner government, who had created the system of racial classification known as apartheid, arrested all political prisoners and sent them to Robben Island so they couldn´t lead the people in an uprising against the government.   Robben Island was the definition of an island prison. The tour consisted of us boarding old, white busses and being toured around the island visiting important sights like the church where they buried all the victims when the island was used as a leper colony. We also visited the limestone quarry where Mandela and other prisoners were forced to work. We tourists were not allowed to walk freely around the island so the only downside was being crammed in that bus, where it was difficult to take pictures.

When we reached the prison barracks we were allowed to get off the buses and were met by tour guides who were former political prisoners at Robben Island. This, for me, was the most interesting, because we got a very personal experience of what it would have been like to be imprisoned there, most of the time on trumped up, ridiculous charges. The conditions were not good, of course, but the prisoners (except for the leaders like Mandela) were allowed to interact with each other during football matches. It was a very humbling experience to be there and hear the stories. After we made the obligatory stop to peer into Mandela´s cell, I found it hard to believe that such a man could have encouraged a spirit of forgiveness in South Africa after how he had been treated for so many years.

The ferry ride back was… a little rough. Nothing like our experience on the boat to Providencia Island, but it was still very rocky. Jon and I had originally chosen to sit on the top of the boat to get photos of Cape Town from the sea. However, as the boat was leaving, one of the attendants seemed quite serious when he said, “If you stay up here you WILL get wet and regret it. There was weather up ahead,” he said. So Jon and I quickly made our way back downstairs but many people chose to stay up on the top deck. Bad decision! The waves were so rough that the captain blasted some Bob Marley and Queen so that we wouldn´t hear the boat slamming into the waves and be distracted from the subsequent spray that covered the entire boat. In fact, the ship attendants instead held a dance off in the aisles to keep our mind off the journey. It was a great atmosphere: I love South Africans. They are so friendly and so fun! Such a change from Santiago where we are never greeted while a smile from a stranger.

The seemingly innocuous ferry ride we took home

That night we had dinner at the waterfront again, this time with Krystle and Andrew. Krystle was Jon´s teaching partner for 2 years at Nido and moved here to be with her boyfriend. We had a great night with them. The food (an unusual combination of Indian and Chinese) was delicious and the wine went down smoothly. So smoothly, in fact, that we decided to go to a bar afterward and drink more. A not so smart decision since we didn´t get up the next morning till around 11:00. But it was worth it since Jon and I had a ton of fun and we don´t really ever go out anymore. Plus we slept enough the next morning in order to enjoy the rest of our day in Cape Town.

This will be a brief blog post, but I wanted to let everyone know that the news from the MRI, that I luckily had later in the day on Monday, was good.  The lesions have shrunk in size and are much less numerous.  They are not producing anymore enema so I have no more brain swelling.  The lesions are no longer cancerous and my doctor says they will turn to scars like the lesions in my bone.  I am exhausted, relieved, and ready to celebrate.  I will write more tomorrow, but I wanted to let everyone know.  THANK YOU TEAM ELI!!!