The Infinity Pools at Bushman’s Kloof Resort, South Africa

Rand and Justin check to make sure that the water in the pool is actually wet.

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When Rand first told me that Bushman’s Kloof had not one, but several infinity pools, I promptly freaked out.

“How is that even possible?” I squealed.

“It’s a luxury resort,” Rand explained.

“That still doesn’t make sense. They are messing with THE VERY FABRIC OF SPACE TIME.”

With that statement, my husband paused, and took a long look at me.

“Sweetie,” he said, gently patting my hand, “you realize that infinity pools aren’t actually infinite, right?”

And that’s how one of the bigger disappointments of my life came to pass:

I specified Earth because I hold out hope that there’s an advanced race out there that has figured out how to make an infinite swimming pool.

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(I have other sad news, too: the Burger King is merely the titular head of the Burger Kingdom. He has virtually no authority is the passing of Burger Laws. The entire Burger monarchy is pretty much a shill, and the real governing entity is the Burger Parliament.

I will obviously be writing a letter to my Burger Congressperson about this.)

Turns out that infinity pools are simply pools that don’t have a raised lip on them. If they are placed near the ocean, or along a flat horizon, the pools can appear to extend into the sea or the sky (neither of which are *technically* infinite, but the name makes slightly more sense in that context.)

There are three infinity pools at the main lodge of the Kloof (rumor has it there is even one more), as well as a smaller pool at the Koro lodge. And while none of them are infinite, they are all quite lovely.

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Interestingly, they weren’t chlorinated, but were instead treated with some sort of natural mineral. Consequently, the water wasn’t the color of mouthwash, and you could spend long hours in it without burning your eyes or frying your hair.

And as you sat there, floating around in the water, someone would come by from the kitchen and ask if you wanted a drink. And moments later you’d be drinking strawberry daiquiris in the pool, and quietly whispering to one another than you are the luckiest people on earth.

This is an awful picture of me but I posted it because I love the look on Rand’s face.

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All of the pools ended in a sort of waterfall over an edge, where there was a small reservoir that pumped the water back into the pool. The water kept moving like that, over the edge and back into the pool in a never-ending loop. So I guess it’s okay to call them infinite, though really something like a “looper pool” would be just as accurate.

(Note: in was at this point during the drafting of this post that I started thinking about the movie Looper, and how a lot of the holes in the plot really annoyed me. That led me to think about Joseph Gordon Levitt, and eventually, my brain became consumed with the mental picture of him, Bruce Willis, and Jeff Daniels hanging out in a pool together. Several long minutes were lost to that rather delightful fantasy.)

Naturally, I spent a while examining this mechanism:

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After I was thoroughly convinced that the pool was not infinite, and didn’t lead to some sort of singularity  or the edge of the world, I made Rand take this series of photos in which I am pretending to fall into the abyss:

SEXAAAAY!

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All the while I was saying, in a sing-song voice, “Oooooohhhhh noooooooooo.”

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You know, sometimes I have to admire my commitment to a bit.

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We took a look at those photos later, and agreed that they were delightfully unflattering.

“You are such a huge dork,” Rand said, kissing my head. And I laughed, because my poor husband is stuck with me. Forever and ever and ever.