Where Was I?
Flew from Zanzibar > Dar es Salaam > Johannesburg > Cape Town
Total Flights: 3
When Did I Go?
Oct 13 – Oct 29
Currency
South African Rand
It’s late October, which means I’m writing this post about one month since leaving the U.S. As cliché as it sounds, it is always hard to believe how fast time goes when you’re traveling.
The African portion of the trip was one I was really looking forward to. It was not only going to be my first month traveling, but also my first ever trip to this continent. While the first two weeks were spent on safari and at the beach in Tanzania, these next two weeks were in two major cities in South Africa; Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Johannesburg
Maboneng
I’ll open by saying I don’t have many photos from Joburg. I tried to take as many precautions as I could to avoid any kind of problems and one of them was to keep my phone in my pocket at almost all times. I did plenty of research on the city and I read about all of the safety concerns with muggings and crime. I talked to many people about visiting the city, some who suggested I not visit at all, but I wanted to see it for myself.
I’m very glad I decided to visit.
The Best Thing I Saw
Tour of Soweto
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I spent most of my time in Joburg learning about the history of South Africa. It’s one thing to read about the history online or from a book, but I wanted to learn it from seeing these places in person and hearing from first and second-hand accounts. I took a few different tours through different areas of the city, but this one through Soweto was really eye-opening. Above is a picture of my guide Ntsiki and I at a craft brewery in Soweto. She walked me through the Township and told me about its past. Her childhood was spent during the end of the Apartheid years (ended in 1994) and she told some astonishing stories that she witnessed as a kid and some passed down to her by her parents, who lived most of their lives during the Apartheid. It was hard for me to believe that these things existed in my lifetime, but it’s important to learn about the truth, as hard as it may have been to hear. I’m glad I was able to learn about it from someone who lived it and still lives in this region today.
While it was obvious there was still so much poverty in this area, I noticed a real sense of community walking the streets with Ntsiki. Many of the locals knew her and would speak to her in their native tongue and many would greet me with a ‘Welcome to Soweto.’ I got the sense that the people living in this area were very proud of where they came from and wanted to show it off. I felt safe the entire day I was out there, even when we took a local taxi into the deep area of the Township, away from where many of the big tour buses stop filled with tourists looking to get a glimpse of Nelson Mandela’s house or visit the Hector Pieterson Museum.
My trip around the world will be filled with natural wonders, amazing views, incredible wildlife, and scenic pictures that will draw more attention, but stops like these were a big part of the reason I wanted to travel.
Other Highlights
– I stayed in downtown Joburg in the Maboneng Precinct, a vibrant neighborhood that is just a decade old. Many of the locals told me if I had come 10 years ago, this was a big no-go zone and one of the most dangerous in the entire city. But in 2018 the streets were filled with cafes, art galleries, and many creative young people who all seemed to share a passion for their city. I was able to do a walking tour with a local named Bright, who taught me about the city from walking the streets and then allowed me to hang with him and his friends at a cafe where I learned more about life in South Africa.
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– The AirBnB I stayed at in Maboneng was at a development called Drivelines, a new building made of upcycled shipping containers. I was curious as to what living in one of these would be like, but it actually was very nice for a solo traveler and I would happily stay there again. Below is a video to get an idea of what it looked like.
– The Apartheid Museum
– Montecasino
– Ate Springbok
– Saw ‘A Star is Born’, which I enjoyed, but one thing to note in the South Africa cinema: they played a two-minute video before the movie about the rating system and how severe of a crime it would be to let a minor see a movie outside of their age bracket. With all of the issues that this country deals with, I found that to be kind of amusing.
I don’t like making declarations like ‘Johannesburg is safe, go visit!’ or ‘DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT WALKING OUTSIDE’ because I think it just depends on your own experiences. I’ll just say I took all the precautions necessary, I didn’t walk outside after dark, and I felt safe during my stay and didn’t experience anything but very friendly people who were happy that I was visiting their city.
Cape Town
Cape Town
While I really enjoyed my time in Johannesburg, it would be hard to find a city more visually appealing than Cape Town. After a few weeks of being somewhat restrained to either being in a safari truck or forced to walk with a guide, it was a nice change to be able to walk around the city on my own.
The Best Thing I Saw
The views from Table Mountain
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Hiking Table Mountain was great for a few reasons. The obvious one being just for the views of the city from the top. It doesn’t get much better than that. But it also was a great accomplishment to climb to the top, as I don’t have a ton of hiking experience and this would probably be the longest and most difficult hike of my limited hiking career. I wasn’t hanging from rocks, but there were certain parts I had to scramble and climb up, which I thankfully had a great guide who led the way on this early morning hike. These kind of activities can be daunting for anyone, but especially with T1D there’s a lot of extra prep you must do to ensure your safety and ability to reach the top.
Cape Town from Table Mountain
Awesome Guide Martin
Other Highlights
– Peninsula Tour
Another great guided tour all along the coast out to Cape Point. It included a stop at Boulders Beach to see the penguins and it was a great way to see this region.
Cape Point
Sunset in Cape Town
Panorama
– Wine Tour in Stellenbosch
Visited five wineries in one of the world’s top wine regions. If you visit Cape Town, I’d highly recommend going to see this area and tasting all of these wines.
Wine Cellar
Stellenbosch
Medley of whites
– Bo-Kaap Tour
Bo-Kaap
I had a few other tours planned but got a bit of food poisoning on my last weekend, which forced me to call them off as they were centered around food and wine.
Despite that, I still really loved Cape Town and would love to go back.
The Sugars
Clifton Beach
Highest high: 330
Lowest low: 36
Avg Morning: 128
Avg Afternoon: 132
Avg Night: 131
Insulin Pods: 6
Avg Basal Rate: 1.10
Emergency sugar supply: Skittles, glucose tablets, energy drinks, apples, oranges
I had a lot of good sugar days in South Africa. There wasn’t as much moving from location to location as there was in Tanzania, as I had one base in Johannesburg and one base in Cape Town. I was able to leave the insulin I’m not currently using in the refrigerator in both locations and was able to easily stock up on sugar supplies and leave them in my room. In Cape Town, I bought a bag of apples and oranges on my first day there, and they were a great supply of sugar over my 10 day stay on the Western Cape. Apples and oranges have about 15-20g of carbs in them, depending on their size, and I always find them to be great sources of fast-acting sugar. If I have a low, I usually feel better within a few minutes of eating either.
A few of the days in Cape Town I did what I’d consider somewhat strenuous activities. For both the peninsula tour and the hike of Table Mountain, I brought my whole bag of oranges with me, along with other fast-acting sugar products.
Any time I have to do something like a long hike with a lot of physical activity, it’s even more important to prepare my sugars leading up to the event. I ate a lot of pasta the night before the hike and woke up with my sugar around 170. I wanted to really make sure I avoided any lows, where I would have to take an extended break and wait for my sugar to rise before continuing. I packed all kinds of sugar products, along with my water, which I would take along the way. The hike was scheduled to last about three hours to the top, so I began with an orange. Around one hour into the hike, my sugar was down to 111, so I loaded up with another orange, an energy drink, and some energy chews, which totaled about 60g of sugar. I thought that would be safe to get me through the rest of the way. I felt good for most of the way up, with the exception of a little cramping near the top. Once I did reach the top, I checked my sugar again and it was up to 180. It was a little higher than I wanted it, but I knew I aimed high when taking all that sugar and I wasn’t sure how my body would react with all the climbing. I took some insulin once at the top, ate a slice of milk tart after my guide recommended it, and then took the cable car down to the bottom.
The thing about diabetes is you never win and then it’s over and you move on. You always need to keep up with it. I felt good about the hike, felt that my sugars were in a good place, but after all that physical exertion, sometimes that affects your sugars hours later. After the hike, I went to check out the Botanical Gardens and walked around for maybe two hours. It was just casual walking, but by the end of it, my sugar was down to 36, so I bought a fruit drink and a cookie at the shop and waited for it to go back up. Remember I said I only take my emergency sugars if I need to. If there is a shop within range, I’ll usually buy something to raise my sugars. I felt a little low, but didn’t feel like it was as low as my meter indicated. Sometimes, when you exert a lot of energy, the symptoms afterwards can mirror a low, so it’s hard to know if your sugar is low or you just crushed a workout. That’s why it’s important to check your sugar often on these days to closely monitor your levels. It’s also a good idea to lower your basal rate on these days, something I actually meant to do but forgot. I probably could have avoided this low if I changed my basal rate down to 1.00 or 0.9 from my new basal rate of 1.10 I’ve been using on the trip. Next time I’m in Cape Town and climb Table Mountain I’ll hopefully remember to do this and see if it helps.
It was unrelated to the low sugar, but I also had my first pod failure right around this time at the Botanical Gardens. This used to happen all the time with Omnipod, but since they changed their manufacturing and made smaller pods about four years ago, they rarely malfunction. The pod will alarm and tell you it’s stopped delivering insulin, and then you need to put on a new pod, so thankfully I had my emergency pod in my bag along with my insulin and did just that. Again, always need to be prepared for these things. However, what does suck is you not only lose the pod that malfunctions, but also all the insulin left inside. I had about two days worth of insulin that I had to throw away, because you can’t take insulin out of the pod once it’s in there.
Anyways, here’s a few shots from the Botanical Gardens if you just like this site for the pictures and are not interested in the sugar levels:
My sugar also dropped down to 45 after the full day peninsula tour, which consisted of a lot of walking up steep inclines and took its toll on my body. It was also a hot day, which will sometimes add to the likelihood of a low blood sugar. I had my sugar in good range for most of the day, but by the time it was over it fell into the low range.
There were a few highs as well.
I had one day in Johannesburg where my sugar just never seemed to go down, even when I kept giving myself insulin and raised my basal rate. These days happen and it’s hard to ever know exactly why. It could have been the placement of my pod, maybe the pod wasn’t working properly, or maybe my body was just reacting weird that day, it’s always hard to pinpoint one reason. It actually was the day I did the tour of Soweto, which was one of my favorite days of my time in South Africa. I never let my sugar levels dictate my overall mood, so even when it was not such a great sugar day, I still considered it one of my best days on the trip. My sugar was high until the next morning, but after changing pods, it went back down to normal, so maybe it was that particular pod.
The only other time where my sugar stayed a little higher for most of the day was by design on the wine tour of Stellenbosch. A lot of people ask me if I am allowed to drink alcohol as a Type 1 diabetic. The answer is yes, I just don’t drink in excess very often because it usually makes things more difficult. If I want to drink one glass of wine or have one beer, it’s not going to have a big effect. But, going on a wine tour and having about 25 wine tastings over a full day will certainly alter your sugars level. The hard part about alcohol is the drinks themselves usually contain carbs (beer more than wine, but wine has some too). So, you need to take insulin for the carbs in the drink, but once the alcohol processes in your body, it can make your sugar drop, sometimes severely which is why it’s important to monitor your levels closely. If I know I’m going to be drinking in excess, I’ll usually make sure to do so on a full stomach and I’ll try to keep my sugars a little higher than normal just to be safe., especially overnight. My sugar was around 130 – 150 for most of the day on the wine tour and never dropped too low at any time.
Just because I write about the few sugar related issues on this part of the trip shouldn’t lead you to believe that’ I’m struggling mightily with this or having real issues. As I started this section I wrote it was mostly good days in South Africa. I try to write about a few of the issues that come up, because just writing that everything is great wouldn’t be as fun to read or write about. Also, a lot of this I’ve dealt with in some ways or another at certain times over the last eight and a half years, so I have a pretty good idea how to handle most of these situations. It’s always about adjusting, learning, and trying to do better the next time.
I left Cape Town on the afternoon of October 29th, just a few hours after the Boston Red Sox captured their fourth World Series title in 14 years. I won’t miss waking up at 2am every morning to watch the games (Game 3 ended at 9:30am, yes I watched it all), and I know my body and sugar levels will appreciate a more regular sleep schedule. But it was worth it.
And I bought Emirates’ finest bottle of champagne to celebrate on my flight to Dubai.
A toast to the 2018 World Series Champion Boston Red Sox
I’m in Dubai for a week and then off to Thailand.
To more solid sugar levels
Jeremy
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