Flying tortoises

This weekend I went to see ‘The Hot Fisherman’ in the Eastern Cape for a little Valentines getaway. We stayed on a gorgeous hunting farm 2 hours outside of Stutterheim. On one of the game drives we saw a number of territorial Bontebok males courting the females with a display which looked very much like they were all constipated – tails curled up over their backs horizontally while holding their heads low with outstretched legs. It made me wonder what sort of display ‘The Hot Fisherman’ would put on if he was in rut. Maybe he would show off with his rod…excuse the pun.


On one of the game drives, we saw an old tortoise next to the road. We got out the car to have a look at him (I made sure the farm didn’t have any animals that could eat us before I got out). The tortoise wasn’t too impressed with all the attention and made a sluggish sprint for the closest bush. Shame…I felt bad for barging in on his chill time.

This story is going somewhere I assure you, just keep reading…

The time finally arrived for ‘The Hot Fisherman’ and I to get some shut eye at around 12pm after several Savanna’s and a few glasses of vino. I plonked myself down on the bed and fell asleep before my head hit the pillow, and that’s when it happened…

All of a sudden, I heard a noise on the roof. Startling from the clamor, I looked up towards the roof and saw hundreds of tortoises all looking down at me. I could ‘see’ how frantically they were all trying to get away from the edge of the roof as more and more tortoises appeared out of nowhere. I grabbed ‘The Hot Fisherman’s’ arm with one swift motion crying out, ‘Shit, shit, shit’. ‘The Hot Fisherman’ sat bolt upright in the bed requesting an explanation for my very strange behaviour. I told him hysterically that, ‘the tortoises were on the roof’. He then calmly asked how I knew that they were tortoises, to which I replied, ‘…coz I can see them’. At this, ‘The Hot Fisherman’ candidly turned over and told me that I was dreaming. Flabbergasted at how abruptly he had written off my obvious concern for the lives of the innocent tortoises, (which could have been on the roof for all he knew) I called him an asshole and turned over, fuming in the darkness.

Needless to say, I felt like a tool the next morning (on Valentine’s day nogal) and I think ‘The Hot Fisherman’ has placed me on a waiting list at the Happy Campers mental health clinic.