For the last couple of years my job has entailed a lot of live shows and some erratic DJing as well, so I've ended up spending most of my time in smoky dungeons, subsisting on a diet of euro-lager and whatever the local equivalent of cheese & chips is.
Evidently this had started to take its toll on my delicate constitution - by the first week of this year I was nursing a broken ankle, a sprained ankle (the other one), an ear infection (which left me temporarily deaf), and a bout of crabcake-related food poisoning.
News of my spectacular decline must somehow have filtered back to the Guardian Travel section, who decided, with their trademark sick sense of humour, to offer me a column on the Wellbeing page.
Every month I would recommend, they suggested, nice, relaxing, healthy things to do in the places I've visited.
I realised that I faced a crossroads: down one path, a lifetime of indentured labour as a (badly paid) travel writer, and probably being expected to do yoga at some point in the future. Yet down the other, death surely loomed somewhere round the corner. Yoga or death? Death. Or. Yoga? I picked up the phone and, through gritted teeth, accepted the offer.
All this medical and psychological drama took place in Cape Town, so, having cancelled some gigs, I decided to stay on to recuperate. The city is stunning, and for the first couple of days I was content to hobble up to watch the sunset from Lion's Head, which sits across the city centre from the Mount-Doom-like Table mountain.
The best beaches we found are in Clifton - a string of coves broken up by huge boulders, a short drive away from town. It looks a bit like Malibu, with tiny millionaires' bungalows crowded on the slopes leading down to the shore. You might notice that nobody is in the water, though - this is because it is Baltic-like in temperature (12-18C), and seething with giant man-eaters too, probably.
Next stop along the coast is Camps Bay, with its string of identikit-style bars. We settled for Sunset Beach (in honour of the shit Channel 5 soap opera of the same name). The mojitos were "no bad" according to the Phantom (our resident graphic designer and freeloading Glaswegian bastard). I settled for a glass of water to wash down my cocktail of antibiotics, steroids and Vicodin.
We eventually hired a car (we used southafricarent.co.za - prices about the same as UK) and went exploring the Cape peninsula, to the south. Predictably, we ignored the written warnings and attempted to "interact with" (ie provoke) the resident baboons that line the roadside. In return, I probably got off lightly - a few baleful stares and, unmistakably, the universal hand gesture for "wanker".
We also spent a diverting few minutes in a car park trying to lure a chubby giant rat-like creature into the boot of our car. It turned out to be a hyrax, which, fact fans, is the closest existing relative of the elephant.
Honourable mention has to go to the excellent Cape Milner hotel (capemilner.com), for putting us up (and putting up with us) for the week. Ask for a room up in the annexe - they're huge.
