(written March 21)

Inoculations:

Serious trip preparations (that is, it became more than just day dreaming) began at the beginning of January, when myself and Alison made an appointment at the Netcare Travel Clinic here in Cape Town and began the long, long, long process of inoculations.

I had ripped Alison off for ages before, telling her how she had to have all these injections (she is scared of needles) and how I was all set because I had had all the shots before. Turned out all my inoculations I had for Asia (almost three years ago) and the Middle East (10 years ago) had expired, and I needed everything but the Hep A. Go figure.

We have been at the clinic five times over the past three months. Very expensive process. I am justifying it to myself that I am not having some Third World official stop me at some border post in the middle of no-where and decide that I should be inoculated it I want to enter his country, and promptly deciding to inject me with some dodgy expired concoction with a dirty needle. No thanks, I value my life.

To date, we are officially set for:
Yellow Fever (one shot, valid for 10 years)
Tetanus, diphtheria and polio (one shot, valid for three years)
Rabies (this is a really just-in-case-but-you-never-know one and remember those dirty needles, three shots, valid for one year, but valid for five if we find a place to get a fourth booster shot in a years time)
Meningitis (one shot, valid for three years)
Typhoid (one shot, valid for three years)
Cholera (two interesting drinks, valid for two years)

Alison has had the first two shots of the Hepatitis A and B twin inoculation. Her last shot is either the 17th or 19th of July (I can never remember), which should get her protected for 10 years.

 Malaria and altitude sickness medication:

We still have to get this, figured closer to the time…

Departure date:

We are waiting on Alison’s last shot before we leave, so we are looking at a date sometime in the last week of July. It’s great going overland in the sense that no set date is needed for, example, booking flights, we can just leave from our front door; but it’s also stressful in that there is no set date, and sometimes having a set and clearly defined goal, a date to work towards, is a motivator in itself.

The tent:

The next big thing we had to do was test the tent. When we stayed at the backpackers in Warner Beach in Durban in January we realised that most of the hostels in South Africa let people camp in their gardens for a third of the price of a room or a dorm. A tent, we decided, was a very good way to save money.

The day we were back in Cape Town Alison dragged me to Canal Walk (her favorite shopping centre) and found a tent perfect for our needs (I have never mastered the art of shopping and always find it incredibly surreal to walk into a shop with someone and then walk out with exactly what we were looking for).

The tent (currently going by the name of Base Camp) is a standard four-man (two people plus backpacks plus food), UV-resistant (as per my mate Juanita’s advice), shower-proof and has this neat bucket-door flap where the ground sheet hooks up a couple of inches over the door so water doesn’t flow into the tent when it rains.

This weekend – Saturday March 17th – I decide to take Alison camping in the Cederberg Wilderness Area (about two-and-a-half hours away) to give the tent a trial run. Besides, I love camping and escaping the city is always a good thing.

So, we arrived, spent a wonderful sunny afternoon lounging in the rock pools formed by a waterfall about a 10 minute walk from the camp site, I managed to impress the girl with my tent-erecting and campfire-lighting skills, dinner was brilliant and we spent a long time looking up at the stars. Not bad at all.

Then the winds came. Unpredicted gale-force winds howling over the mountains right through our tent. And I mean through, our tent probably gave out well before the dawn, when Alison woke me up to tell me the poles had collapsed and she was going home. It was one of those camping experiences you just don’t want to remember.

But the tent is still intact, and I am naïve enough to hope for another trial run before we leave.

Backpacks:

One big thing we did manage to get sorted months ago was our backpacks. Alison’s shopping skills came into play again (and made life so much easier) as I followed her around Canal Walk and Cape Union Mart at the V&A Waterfront to scope out our options.

Alison didn’t have a pack suitable for the trip, and I had decided to retire mine. The decision was a reluctant one. I love my pack but I know it will not survive another trip. It has been with me since the beginning of my travels, I bought it 10 years ago when I first went to London, but it is shredded in the front from being stuffed on the grimy floor under the seat on a bus or train once too often.

We eventually found just what we were looking for at Due South. A massive 70 litre pack with so many compartments and zips and clip-on-things that it is going to take us ages (plenty of travelling) to figure it all out.

The route:

Our route so far is starting here is Cape Town and going up the Garden Route and the KZN coast (hopefully detouring into Lesotho on the way), up to St Lucia (and Kwambonambi), Swaziland and Kruger National Park, then through northern South Africa into Namibia. We both decided we wanted to see South Africa properly before we left.

From Namibia we plan to make our way into Botswana, then Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and up into Egypt, the standard Cape to Cairo route. With a few exceptions of course. We both want to go to Zanzibar, and the possibility of the Comoros, Madagascar and the Seychelles being so close is tantalising.
We also think we might hit serious problems trying to get into Sudan. People I have spoken to on the web who have done the route say all should be fine until then, which I tend to agree with. Alison is very worried, and I am too, but there is nothing to do but try and see. We are not going to know unless we do it.

We bought a Lonely Planet for South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland when we were in Durban in July (it was more than R100 cheaper there than in Cape Town) and check the Lonely Planet website almost daily (I am pondering whether I am neurotic) to see when the next Africa on a Shoestring guide is coming out (it is due sometime this year). No luck so far.

We also spent this Sunday (recovering from our disastrous camping trip) at Exclusive Books (at the Waterfront, Alison treated me to sushi) checking out the possibilities of doing the Trans Siberia to get into Asia. I have also been spending some work time checking out www.transsib.ru (very, very good site).

General:

Other than that there is still plenty of day dreaming on my side and plenty of running around and organising on Alison’s, you know, just general things like proper socks for hiking (and in case our feet get cold in the mountains) and stainless steel crockery that doesn’t break and fishing line in case our packs break. There is also the general worrying about what clothes we are going to need and budgeting for mosquito nets and first aid kits and these really cool sleeping bags we (read Alison) found at Cape Union Mart.

We have being doing loads of reading on the countries that interest us, especially the tales of other travellers. The news websites of other countries are also brilliant to find out what conditions will be like for us in the places we want to visit.

Checking out visa requirements and if we can get them along the way also gives us a good idea of what we can expect. There is much consulting of the world map on my wall.

There is also the packing up of my flat in anticipation of moving (a friend has been kind enough to give me the run of her granny flat for the three months in between my flat lease expiring and us leaving).

Lastly, I spent today sewing on a badge of the South African flag on my backpack, a minor detail but it was quiet a mission.