Sarah and I have had made some incredibly rewarding side trips to mesmerizing Zambia and relaxing Mozambique.  We’ve thoroughly explored Victoria Falls, swimming on the very edge of the falls and rafting through the violent churn of the Zambezi at its base.  I’ve watched the sky light up in brilliant hues while surfing glassy clean 8” breaks off the coast of Tofo at sunrise.

But our travel hasn’t been always been picture perfect.  In the past few weeks in particular, the fates seem intent on making me pay my dues for the incredible memories I’ve made thus far.

Strike One
One of my top priorities while in South Africa was spending a lot of time surfing.  The water’s relatively warm and on most days the break is easily twice the size of the best that the Atlantic has to offer.  Since I was only going to be in Durban for a little over two months, I went out as often as I could, regardless of the conditions.

One particular day, the water was incredibly choppy and I was the only guy on the beach.  I had been noticing that these peculiar jellyfish washed up on the shore from time to time, but this day the entire beach front was littered with them.  Hailing from Virginia Beach, I’m no stranger to jellyfish and figured I could deal with a couple of minor stings.

After being in the water, I felt a searing pain that was traveling from my calf up my thigh.  I reflexively reached down to brush away the jellyfish, only to come away with deep blue tentacles wrapped around my fingers.  Needless to say, they burned to the touch.  Still, I expected the pain would quickly fade and vowed to stay in the water.

Though my calf and hand continued to throb, I was enjoying the surf enough that I simply suppressed the pain.  After a particular violent wipe out, I came up staggering - it felt as though a horse had kicked the inside of my thigh.  I thought perhaps I’d been nailed by my board while thrashing around underwater, but as a numbness began creeping up my leg into my lower back, I started taking a closer look at those jellyfish drying on the sand.

I managed to drive myself home and do some quick searching online.  It turned out I had been stung by a Portuguese Man o’ War. I employed a number of different home remedies, and after 8 hours the pain and nausea would eventually fade.  I was a lot more selective about when I went surfing after that encounter.

Strike Two
The local transport in Zambia is quite an experience.  I counted a dozen seats in the van-style shared taxis, but I’ve been inside them with as many as 26 passengers crammed inside.  People are literally half hanging outside the vehicle and the driver will inevitably stop and pick up more.

At any given time of the day, the local taxi station will have thirty or more of these taxis milling around in a crowded dirt lot.  As you might imagine, its utter chaos.  After one particular trip to Victoria Falls, I was standing outside one of these vans, waiting for Sarah to exit after me when another car outside of the field of my vision backed into me.

It wasn’t moving particularly fast.  But the bumper just so happened to be level with my knee, and when the two met, it wasn’t the car that gave way.  Unfortunately, the angle of impact was such that my knee gave way sideways.  Did I mention that this was the knee that I had reconstructive ACL surgery on?

After a lot of ice and rest, I’m pretty sure I escaped without any lasting damage.  I’ve since done plenty of running, surfing and general physical activity without any problems.  But part of me will always wonder.

Strike Three
Driving back from Bulungula, the vehicle in front of us suddenly and very dramatically veered off the highway.  I immediately pulled the Beast over so we could offer whatever assistance we could.  The highway was at the top of a small rise, and the crumpled car had left a clear trail of torn earth in its wake.

There was at least one body that lie unmoving in the grass a meter or two from the smoking wreckage.  A woman was hysterically unleashing bone-chilling screams while struggling to open the mangled passenger-side door.  I noticed there was still a man trapped inside.  One good look at the door was enough to know he wouldn’t be able to exit from that side.  I tried the driver’s side, and found it opened easily enough.  The man within moved as though in a dream, so I ended up physically helping him out of the vehicle and sitting him down in an area free of shattered glass.

At this point, I had three realizations hit me in quick succession.  1) I had this man’s blood all over my hands.  2) I had a couple of small cuts on my left hand that I had received from thorny bushes while hiking at Bulungula.  3) At 40%, Kwazulu Natal has the highest rate of HIV infection in all of South Africa.

Later, I would learn that there’s less than a 0.3% chance that I contracted HIV.  Yet the remainder of the drive home will remain one of the most harrowing evenings of my life.