Detoxification: Torture in guise of good health

The subject of detoxification rears its ugly head off the lips of Inge, my Norwegian neighbour. Evidently he books in at a health spa, spending a week ridding his body of bad things. Like coffee, fermented grapes, tannin, red meat and nicotine.

It triggers a memory of when we did the same thing, and at the same spa. Small world. It’s more than a spa. A five-star hotel better describes it. At reception we enjoy a royal welcome with what looks like glasses of champagne. Wrong. Rooibos. Chilled.

The desk lady has us sign on a green card. No, not for American employment, but a “Pass Out”, reminiscent of the old bioscope interval cards. Why? I ask. “Without it you can’t escape the complex”. Escape? On the third day the reason for the card becomes clear.

Escape is on all the “inmates’” lips. Prisoners we are. We just settled into our luxury suite, when there’s a knock on the door. There stands a statuesque blonde in nurses’ garb – to take our blood pressure. Mine shoots up seeing the ultra-beaut.

“We’ll have to do something about that,” she whimpers. At that remark my Heidi’s blood pressure hits the ceiling. Not a good start. But worse is to come. Dinner time.

“What would you prefer, apples or paw-paws?” asks the skeletal waiter. I opt for apples, Heidi fancies paw-paws. Two tin plates are banged before us, on each an apple and slice of paw-paw.

Starters, I reckon. No way, says Bones, that’s dinner. A portly male diner approaches our table. He has been there for three days. “Are you going to eat the peels?” he asks. No, says I. With that he gobbles them as if they’re Karoo lamb chops. On our third day I do the same with a new soon-to-be-starved diner.

The programme includes a daily Sitz bath. A ceramic basin divided into two. The one side filled with boiling water, the other ice water. Bum in the hot water, feet in the cold for three minutes, then you change, with bum in cold, feet in hot. Third degree burns on buttock and feet. It’s called detoxification. Couldn’t crack the elusive green card, so five days of Sitz. Can’t wait to ingest bad exchanges with Inge.

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