Wow, packing for a multi-month trip that will include backpacking/trecking, beach-lounging, going to spanish school, visiting people in cities, hosteling and hoteling is quite a daunting task. It’s pretty nice to have the internet for some basic guidelines. One Bag is awesome. The Universal Packing List is also quite useful.
One of my dillemas right now is my hiking boots. I love my boots but the bastards weigh about 5 lbs. They’ll be overkill for a lot of things I’m doing and an outright burden by the time I get to Brazil. I do think that if I am going to be carrying a backpack for a multi-day backpacking excursion I’ll need more ankle protection that some hiking approach/trail runner shoes will offer.
The other dillema is caused by my campstove, a trusty old MSR Whisperlite. Noe I really wish I had dropped the extra $15 for the heavier international multi-fuel model. Seems that it can be a bit of a hassle to get white gas in out of the way places in South America. Luckily all the major hiking meccas seem to have well equiped outfitters that can hook it up. I’m gonna bring the Whisperlite and my 24oz fuel canister - that way I can even stock up in hiking meccas and carry fuel for a long ways. It’s not that heavy and I don’t intend on doing a lot of hiking with ALL my belongings. I hope to do more of a stash-at-a-hostel-or-outfitter and go on a trip with the necessities. We’ll see.
So I’ve been reading about shaving oil but I’m having a hard time locating any in the local stores. The internet has plenty to offer but with 6 days left - not so good. I kinda don’t like the idea of shaving with Dr. Bronners. It would hurt. I could not shave at all but it sure is nice for sucking up to be respectable looking for the authority types at border crossings. Hmm, right now I’ve got a mini shaving gel can, we’ll see how far that makes it through the triage.
Triage — In the process of getting ready for the mock-packing and triage of what I really need I discovered that I had 2 left Chaco sandals. One small, one not. That’s what happens when my sister buys some with the same pattern and then I hurriedly throw all “my” shoes in my bag as I head out of Boston. Luckily there’s still time to mail them to Virginia.
I sure miss the selection of outfitters in Boston; It’s awesome to start a day at EMS and Bob Smith’s Wilderness House and swing by the new REI on the way to Hilton’s Tent City, all on bike of course. The only way to go.
If there’s one thing I’ve got ready that I don’t need to worry about it’s my mp3 CD’s. I think I have somewhere in around 20 dozen albums that I can listen to on the road. Some of that is also about sharing the music with people. It’s such a large part of my existence.
Kudos go out to Adam who gave me his 128MB compact flash card. I mail ordered him a new one. In the clutch situation of one week left I decided that one 128MB card and one flaky 128MB card and one 128MB USB dongle were just not enough to travel with. Good god, I’ll be traveling with 512MB of flash media. 17GB of mp3s. And a CDR with various windows programs and utilities in case I can make my unprofessional but somewhat functional computer troubleshooting skills useful to anyone. Oh yeah, and KNOPPIX linux in case I have to grep or sed something while I’m on the road.
Geek. 20Gigs of data and a 5 lb set of boots. And today I went to Barnes and Noble and pickued up a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Art of War, and The Teachings of Buddah. Interesting mindstate I’m in. The latter two were in these great mini-size formats that were impossible to resist.
Posted by volker at January 20, 2004 03:43 AMkudos? kudos? I feel ripped off.
Posted by: adam at January 22, 2004 10:22 AM