South Africa

We went to South Africa for a pathology conference.

And, to be fair, we actually attended some of it.

In 2012, Sara and I traveled to Cape Town for the International Congress of the International Academy of Pathology—the first IAP international congress ever held in Africa. The meeting was fascinating because the perspective was so different from the conferences I normally attended at home. We learned about malaria, parasites, cancer, and diseases I rarely encountered in my everyday practice, presented by pathologists from around the world.

There was science.

And then someone suggested getting into a cage with great white sharks.

But first, Cape Town.

We stayed at the Westin and could walk to the V&A Waterfront, where we ate things I had never tried before, including waterblommetjies—an edible aquatic plant—and plenty of game meat. We listened to the Abonwabisi Brothers, a local a cappella group I liked so much that I bought their CD. I still have it somewhere.

We rode the cable car to the top of Table Mountain and stood looking out over one of the most spectacularly situated cities I'd ever seen.

The conference also included a cookout at a winery, where a bunch of pathologists from around the world gathered around eating springbok and other game meats. It was one of those times when the conference itself and the destination seemed to blend together.

Sara and I had arranged some touring through PG Tops, including the Cape of Good Hope and the wine country. That's how we met Tony.

Tony was one of those people who stopped feeling like a tour guide almost immediately. We spent hours in the car swapping stories about our lives while he drove us around the Cape, telling us about growing up in South Africa, surfing, and his life there. We ate sushi overlooking the sea near the Cape of Good Hope and somehow we're still Facebook friends all these years later.

He also had a remarkable ability to spot wildlife while driving.

At one point, we were winding along a mountain road when Tony suddenly yelled, "PUFF ADDER!" and slammed on the brakes.

There, crossing the road, was an enormous puff adder. I watched it from just a few feet away through the car window, which was precisely as close as I ever needed to be to a puff adder.

We visited the colony of African penguins—still known to many people then by the much more entertaining name "jackass penguins" because of their donkey-like calls—and continued toward the Cape of Good Hope.

Somewhere during all those hours in the car, Tony started telling us about great white shark cage diving in Gansbaai.

We had not planned to go great white shark cage diving.

Tony thought we should go great white shark cage diving.

Tony won.

The next morning he picked us up around 5 a.m. and drove us to Gansbaai, where we went out with Marine Dynamics.

The crew had all sorts of nicknames for the great whites. My favorite was “men in gray suits.”

Very classy.

Still sharks.

One of the crew helped me into my wetsuit, looked me over, and enthusiastically announced that I wore a small everywhere except up top.

This was apparently useful technical information.

Thanks to Tony, I was among the first people into the cage. I positioned myself at the corner, ducked beneath the water—

—and almost immediately found myself looking directly into the enormous round black eye of a great white shark coming straight toward me.

It bumped the cage.

There are moments in life when you become acutely aware that you are not at the top of the food chain.

This was one of them.

We had goggles but no tanks. Spotters on the boat watched for sharks and would yell things like, "DOWN! FRONT!" or "DOWN! RIGHT!" and we'd plunge beneath the surface trying to see them.

Down. Up. Down. Up.

The sea was rough, the cage was attached to the side of the boat and everything was moving. We had been very specifically instructed to keep our hands and feet inside the cage. Apparently I didn't have quite enough weight on me, because mine had an unfortunate tendency to float outside it.

This seemed less than ideal.

Eventually I climbed back onto the boat and discovered another important fact about shark diving:

I had never been so cold in my entire life.

We continued through Shark Alley, surrounded by an extraordinary concentration of marine life. There were seals everywhere, southern right whales in the area, and great white sharks cruising through the water.

And after all of that, we still made it to the winery.

Because priorities.

What I remember most about South Africa, though, isn't any single attraction.

I remember sitting with Sara and Tony eating sushi while looking out over the sea. I remember hours in the car, driving on the wrong side of the road and trading stories with someone whose life was completely different from ours. I remember a puff adder bringing the car to a screeching halt. Pathologists from around the world eating springbok together. The Abonwabisi Brothers singing at the waterfront. Table Mountain above Cape Town.

And I remember that shark's eye.

South Africa was one of those places I left knowing I hadn't seen nearly enough of it.

It took me fifteen years, but I'm finally going back.