How to burn through money as fast as you can

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30/06/10

Welcome to Africa, where nothing ever goes to plan. Our much boasted about and greatly anticipated 'luxury treat' in a resort courtesy of my mother's time share hasn't really been what we were expecting. The resort is stunning, set 70 km from the nearest other tumbleweed hamlet, in beautiful stark boulderous mountains (I know I’m abusing the English dictionary with the word 'boulderous', but humour me, it fits). The chalet is huge, an 8 bed cottage with 2 storey thatched lounge and a vast stone fireplace. We have 2 outside barbecues or 'braais', one of which is set in a little sandstone cave. There are strange ornate natural rock features with splashes of rich orange across them, towering in piles all around us, vast odd shaped rocks balancing on top of each other precariously as they have done for thousands of years. You feel completely isolated here to the world outside the resort, 35 km of dirt road between you and the nearest tarmac. So isolated in fact that I gave myself the heeby jeebies the other night and had to go round looking in all the rooms and under the beds to stop me from jumping at my own shadow. We don't have TV so the idea was to read, relax, and catch up on planning the next part of the trip.

Our isolation became really apparent when I fell ill in the middle of the second night. I’d had tunnel vision and the start of a migraine all that day, and I woke in real pain at about 1.00 am. Having also had a reoccurring problem in my left eye for about 3 months, I had gone to bed the night before vowing to finally get it checked out next time we went through town. When I woke in the night I thought I was going to throw up or my brain was going to implode. Double dosing painkillers didn't dent it and we were on our way out the door to start a 300 km drive to Cape Town when I realized the pain was bearable when standing up. We decided to stay there and try and ask the resort manager in the morning if there were any nearer clinics open on a Sunday. Next morning we drove 3 hours to Worcester Medi Clinic. Expecting to be told in polite terms that I was overreacting and to go home, and for Nick to then kill me because he would have missed the England Germany match as well as had to do a six hour round trip, I was stunned when they admitted me, put a drip in my arm and gave me blood tests. To cut a painful story short; 6 drip packs, 2 jabs, one blood test, 7 blood pressure and temperature tests, 2 different doctors and a $500 bill that made me cry, and I was allowed to go home the next day. I had suffered from a cluster migraine that keeps tripping one after another. It needs steroids to break the chain. While the treatment in the hospital was really good, I can't recommend South African health care to anyone. Apart from the expense, you get discharged feeling woozy and hospitalfied and then have to trail halfway round the city going to different branches of doctors and clinics paying for all the different parts of the treatment. All you pay the hospital for is the bed.

Nick had checked into a B+B outside the hospital gates so was fresh and ready for the return 3 hour journey. As well as the squeaking steering wheel, the drivers chair has started to move alarmingly around the car. We have driven up and down the dirt track more than planned. And to make matters worse, we had to go back down it the next day to go and stay in Cape Town for a night to watch Spain Portugal, the only match in the World Cup that we had tickets for.

We arrived in Cape Town to heavy grey skies and rain. This was to be our first night camping in our shiny new and very thin tent. Thinking ourselves cunning, we set the tent up on the covered concrete veranda outside the dining room door. This way we avoided the rain and got some of the heat of the busy dining room. It was noisy but we figured it'd have to get quieter around midnight when we got back from the game.

Going to the stadium in Cape Town made me a little sorry we had not gone to more games. The whole of the city centre is lit up with an incredible buzz from all the fans and huge array of street performers. There were old lady drumming teams, junior body poppers, people on stilts following marching bands, and a random guy wandering around in a 5 ft orange hat. Nearly everyone was waving a Spain or Portugal flag, couples often opting for one of each. You could hear every accent or language dressed up in the colours of the evenings match.

The coming together of some many different people from all over the globe to support whichever game and teams they have tickets for makes the World Cup a completely different experience to any you get at a local team match. People are there for a laugh, not just to throw abuse at the opposing team. Being in a stadium where 95% of the 3 tiers participate in Mexican wave, and every 5^th person has a vuvuzela is an onslaught of every sense. 
 

We managed to get back from the football and into the hostel within 30 minutes, which is pretty good going for leaving a stadium during the World Cup. We settled down in our dry and surprisingly warm tent. Within an hour there were 20 people watching the TV full blast, chatting across the garden, smoking cigarettes around us and playing noisy board games. When they quieted down the security guard stood next to our tent holding the door open to watch the TV, still on full vol. At 3.00 am we gave up and moved our tent to a damp grassy spot further away. At 6.45 I got up, giving up on the tent because of the cold. The moral of the story is; if it looks to good to be true, then it is, and the only warm dry spot in the garden is empty for a very good reason.

Point of interest... in all our discussions with people about S. Africa there was one reacurring concern that got voiced... security. We have tried always to be sensible and be on our guard while not being too afraid. The other day we squished all our belongings ou of sight and into the boot of the car and then left it for 3 hours in a carpark. It was only as we unpacked the car later that we realized the boot isn't on central locking and had been open the whole time. A week later we worked out that one of the doors of the car doesn't lock either and we'd had an unlocked car for a week. After the hospital farce we returned and couldn't find the door keys to the chalet. When I tried the door I found it open and the keys inside in a place we didn't leave them. Dread to think how many other occasions we may have been careless and not noticed it.