Anniversary Adventures

South Africans love their warning signs.

"How can I see clearly what's wrong with someone else, and then look at myself as though I'm standing in front of a fogged mirror?"  --Jarod Kintz

I thought Eric would burst a blood vessel at the Johannesburg airport.  Our flight was boarding in minutes and the ticket agent wouldn't check his bike until he paid the extra transport fee.

"But your website says that bikes are free," he protested.

"Yes, but not during this time," she replied.

Eric groaned.  "What do you mean, 'this time?' Seriously?  How am I supposed to know when you arbitrarily change the rules?"

"Sir," the agent said, "I do not control the policy."

 I urged my spouse to give up the fight and pay the $35.

"Fine!" he shouted.  "I'll pay the stupid fee."  He pulled out his wallet.

"Sir.  I can't take your money.  You'll need to go over there to pay, and bring me back the receipt."  She pointed to a long cashier's line.

Eric stormed over to the line and barked at me to watch his bike, which I did, because I didn't want to stand next to Mr. Cranky Pants.

Of course, the cashier didn't have a clue how to find the bike fee in her computer system.  She called a supervisor and they searched together.  Eric rocked back and forth with fury.  When they gave him the receipt he stomped back to the ticket agent.  She issued us a tag and told us that since the bag was over-sized luggage, we'd need to take it to a different part of the airport to check it.  She added, "Wow.  I don't think you'll have time to do that and make your flight."

And that's when Eric melted down.  One of the airport staff finally stepped in and offered to take the bike to the drop off location, so we could get on our plane.  Which we did.

I was convinced that his bike would never show up in Cape Town.  That would be a problem, because the purpose of the trip was to ride in the 109 km Cape Argus Cycle Tour--something we'd been training for months to do.

A dark cloud hung over Eric's head for the entire flight, which irritated me.  Seriously?  You are going to let a dysfunctional airport ruin our anniversary?  How immature.

When we touched down in Cape Town, our eyes widened.  We marveled at the ocean, the tall shiny buildings, and the functioning traffic lights.  We grabbed our luggage (no bike, ha*!), checked into our hotel and ate dinner.

Then we headed to the hospital.  Yes, the hospital, because I had scheduled a sleep study for myself.  I mean, why enjoy a nice hotel when you can sleep in a crappy hospital bed with electrodes super-glued to your head?

And this is the point of the story when things fell apart for me...the one who held the moral high ground at the airport when my husband was losing his mind.

The sleep study was a disaster. Not only did I NOT sleep, the machine malfunctioned and didn't get any data.  At 5 am the nurse rubbed acetone into my scalp and pulled out the electrodes.  "Sarah, I will make sure the hospital doesn't charge you for last night.  Ok, Sarah?  You can come back tonight and we'll try again. They can't charge you for a study that didn't work, Sarah.  That wouldn't be right, Sarah."  She babbled on and on.

I fumed. I rocked back and forth.  I wanted to scream, "For crying out loud you crazy woman, SHUT UP!"

When Eric picked me up I burst into tears.  "I can't do another one.  I can't."  And my husband's response? Kindness.  He didn't tell me to pull it together and stop blowing things out of proportion.

The sleep doctor, while apologetic, said that he couldn't help me until he had proper data, and "Could I please come that evening?" Me and my bad attitude reluctantly agreed, under the condition that Nurse Nut-job wouldn't be there.

I'm glad I went, because I slept that night,  and they got the data, and the doctor discovered my sleep disorder: my legs like to dance all night long.

The rest of the time we enjoyed the magical city.

Vineyards

Mountains

Seas

One day we took the cable car up Table Mountain and planned to hike down. That plan changed once we heard the stories about people blowing out their knees.  We didn't want to risk a sprained ankle before the big bike race, so we purchased tickets for the cable car.

I am a Rock Hyrax 

We saw several of these cute marmot-type creatures.  One guy told me that it was related to the elephant.  I laughed and said something like, "I may be American, but I ain't stupid."

Today I checked the Rock Hyrax Wikipedia page, and this is what it says:

The closest living relatives to hyraxes are the modern-day elephants and sirenians.

This means that we can no longer trust Wikipedia.

As soon as we stepped into the cable car line, the power went out.  Apparently the government started rolling blackouts that day to save energy.

But no worries, folks.  Table Mountain had a back up plan:  a generator.  Sadly, but not surprisingly, it overheated after 20 minutes.  We sat on the top of the mountain for hours and hours and hours.

I'm sure they got lots of feedback.

At least we wouldn't be the first to die on Table Mountain

When the power popped on and the cable cars whizzed into motion, one thousand people cheered.  

We wrapped up our anniversary trip with the Cape Argus Cycle Tour with 35,000 other riders.  That day (of course) the winds picked up to 80 kpm.   Cycling up and down Chapman's Peak was an exhilarating ride to say the least.

And, just like that, our 12th Anniversary Adventure was over, and it was time to head back home.

When we checked in at the airport, the agent informed us that we had to pay an extra baggage fee in addition to TWO bike transport fees. Oh, and she weighed our carry-on bags and found them to be overweight.

Since Eric was so kind to me after my sleep study debacle, I won't throw him under the bus here.

Let's just say, however, that from here on out, I'm slipping Eric a Xanax when we fly anywhere together.








*Eric's bike arrived safely on the following flight.