or: Sometimes it’s a good idea to wear a backpack as a front pack

It was a big week in South Africa. On a large scale there was a massive country-wide strike and marches to protest President Zuma and his actions. On a smaller scale, there was the usual sightseeing.

This is about something in between. Let’s call it “mid-scale”.

I needed to see a travel doctor for some injections and medical sign-off before my upcoming volunteer diving trip to Madagascar.

Aside from my usual fear of most things medical and the resulting procrastination, I had already had this postponed as I was too sick to go the week prior – yes, too sick to go to the doctor. I’m aware of how that sounded and the receptionist was kind enough to point that out too when my travel buddy called to cancel that appointment.

Wednesday afternoon was the new time.

Prior to that, another travel buddy and I were to go to The Castle of Good Hope. It’s the oldest colonial structure in South Africa, dating back to the 1600s. It’s quite close to where we’re staying at the moment so we set out to walk. It was one of those Goldilocks times, not too hot, not too cold. The sky was beginning to darken though and the contrast of the yellow of The Castle with the dark grey of the sky was impressive.

As we neared our destination, we passed some markets and I felt a slight tug and heard the zip move on my backpack. With Jack Burton-like reflexes, I turned around at which point a man quickly veered left and walked away at pace. Cracker-jack timing.

My bag was open.

I had a quick peak in. It appeared nothing was taken but I wasn’t in a safe place to look thoroughly. With that, I zipped it closed and we walked to The Castle. Turns out everything was where it should be. This was a day where I carried my passport and travel vaccination certificates too due to my upcoming doctor’s visit. I was very fortunate.

My backpack became a front-pack for the remainder of the day.

After The Castle, we caught a taxi to the V&A Waterfront to relax and have some lunch. It’s a great venue for this partly because I find water calming and partly because there are a lot of restaurants so there’s no shortage of choice.

Over lunch, I checked my heart rate and found that it jumped 10 beats per minute at the time my zip went down. It was back to normal a few minutes later. This explained the lack of adrenaline rush which I had expected. I still think this is weird.

Chatting to the taxi driver on my way to the doctor, he offered to wait for me so he could take me back to the Waterfront when I finished. I told him I was likely to be over an hour. He told me it was fine, he wouldn’t charge me for waiting and I’d only need to pay him double what the meter said for the journey there. I questioned him further as I was worried he’d be missing fares. He explained it was a quiet day and he’d already been waiting over an hour when I hopped in so he’d just read his paper.

My doctor was hilarious. Turns out we were wearing almost the same clothes and we chatted about movies, sport and the preventative medications I would need. He had to take my resting heart rate. Safe to say, it wasn’t too dissimilar to when my bag’s zip came undone. The doctor decided that wasn’t realistic and we relied on my watch data instead.

He made the consultation as painless as possible.

Except for the injections.

They hurt.

They hurt for days.

With two arms fast becoming dead, I searched for my taxi driver.

He had spent his time reading after refuelling his taxi.

On our return trip, he gave me advice about the upcoming strike and march. We discussed my writing and hobbies as well as his and how he enjoyed driving. He is convinced that anyone that wants a job can find one. He is of the view that there are some lazy people in the world looking for easy options. I told him that is not unique to South Africa, there are lazy people everywhere. We discussed what could happen if everyone that was capable of working actually worked. It was a pretty impressive discussion for a ten minute taxi ride.

Dropping me off, I gave him a sizeable tip and he requested I ask for him if I need a taxi from there in the future. He said “I’m Ernest. As in ‘The Importance of Being…”

He had me at “Ernest”.

And to quote Ice Cube, “I gotta say, it was a good day”.

Note
I had this Little Traveller attached to my bag. It is a fundraiser made by people who have HIV / AIDS and they ask that these travel the world. There are various ones to collect but I liked this one in particular. It is now my bag angel.

* Thanks to Meatloaf for the title to this post. Seems to have inspired a couple of titles recently.