The last few days have been tough for me mentally and emotionally. Now that the Morrissey road trips are behind me, I realize that ALL is left between me and safari is 19 days. Gulp. Two more workouts with my trainer. One more haircut. One more paycheck. Three more weekends. Yowza, it's coming.
I'm reminded by dear friends that I went through this mental mind game before China too, thinking how daunting, out of the box, scary and freaked out the trip would be. And I survived that, and survived it well. And I'll survive this and love it as well too. It's just the between then and now that is playing with my head. Stop, slow down, breathe.
Our tour operator sent the final itinerary for blessing on Friday. A couple of minor tweaks and we are good to go. She also assigned us a guide, so now I wonder how much Said will shape and influence our trip. I've heard absolutely wonderful things about him both on the reference calls and on the forums. I can't wait to meet him and have him show us Tanzania.
At some point soon I should think about practice packing, to ensure I'm not overdoing it. But until then my focus is on becoming more zen-like and relax into it.
Maybe I need a vacation more than I thought!
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Into the T-20s! Yikes!
Happy New Year, and oddly, what a fast new year it's been so far. At least for me.
In terms of safari planning, I am just about done and ready to roll. I found a great pair of half-priced Tevas (just try finding sandals mid-January in this area!) and also found a decent mosquito repellant and various other drugstore sundries, all of which are on their way to me.
My visit to the Travel Clinic was somewhat surprising. The doctor would not vaccinate me against Yellow Fever. Apparently the CDC recommendation has changed and that is only needed now if we are transiting through a country with a higher rate of Yellow Fever (like Kenya). We are not, so that was not done. However, I did manage to get a polio booster, given that there have been some outbreaks recently in Africa and I couldn't remember if I'd had one since my childhood shots. I also came away with an prescription for Malarone, an anti-malarial drug which I need to take for a day before we leave and 7 days after we return in addition to the time we are there.
In addition, I requested from my regular doctor prescriptions for Cipro (the antibiotic of choice for anything that could ail me), an anti-diarrheal, an anti-vomitting, Xanax for the plane (never hurts to have it) and a sleeping aid for beating jetlag the first couple nights. I feel like I have a veritable pharmacopia, because I'll also take cold and flu meds and packs of Emergen-C just in case.
I broke down and bought a Kindle too. Carrying two paperbacks, plus magazines plus my Sudoku books was silly. Or at least that's how I justified it to myself. It's incredibly light weight and gets good battery life while carrying about 10 pounds worth of my reading material. One bonus with the Kindle is that a field guide on lions in the Serengeti, which was 516 hardbound pages and $32 in print was only $8 on the Kindle. So of course I got that first. Score!
So with that, I'm just about ready to roll. I could use more practice on the camera so hopefully after this weekend's Morrissey-related road trip, I can get to that too.
Next week we hit the teens...it's fast approaching. And I'm going whether I'm ready or not!
In terms of safari planning, I am just about done and ready to roll. I found a great pair of half-priced Tevas (just try finding sandals mid-January in this area!) and also found a decent mosquito repellant and various other drugstore sundries, all of which are on their way to me.
My visit to the Travel Clinic was somewhat surprising. The doctor would not vaccinate me against Yellow Fever. Apparently the CDC recommendation has changed and that is only needed now if we are transiting through a country with a higher rate of Yellow Fever (like Kenya). We are not, so that was not done. However, I did manage to get a polio booster, given that there have been some outbreaks recently in Africa and I couldn't remember if I'd had one since my childhood shots. I also came away with an prescription for Malarone, an anti-malarial drug which I need to take for a day before we leave and 7 days after we return in addition to the time we are there.
In addition, I requested from my regular doctor prescriptions for Cipro (the antibiotic of choice for anything that could ail me), an anti-diarrheal, an anti-vomitting, Xanax for the plane (never hurts to have it) and a sleeping aid for beating jetlag the first couple nights. I feel like I have a veritable pharmacopia, because I'll also take cold and flu meds and packs of Emergen-C just in case.
I broke down and bought a Kindle too. Carrying two paperbacks, plus magazines plus my Sudoku books was silly. Or at least that's how I justified it to myself. It's incredibly light weight and gets good battery life while carrying about 10 pounds worth of my reading material. One bonus with the Kindle is that a field guide on lions in the Serengeti, which was 516 hardbound pages and $32 in print was only $8 on the Kindle. So of course I got that first. Score!
So with that, I'm just about ready to roll. I could use more practice on the camera so hopefully after this weekend's Morrissey-related road trip, I can get to that too.
Next week we hit the teens...it's fast approaching. And I'm going whether I'm ready or not!
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