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Live or let die
After having arranged everything for our absence, we still have one unresolved issue: my botanical garden… That my plants are dear to me is an understatement. Over the years I have brought seeds from every corner of the world and grown them into supergreen rainforest-worthy trees, presumably envied by their jungle colleagues. In my assortment: a mango, black pepper, coffee, guanabana, date palm, lemon, cork, rice grass, cashewnut and a pineapple. Oh right, ánd a fantastic orchid! I can easily say, my pride and joy. You understand, the new foster mother/father for these dear children of mine has to come with excellent skills to qualify for this demanding task. While I carefully go through my network of friends and family in my thoughts, there is actually only one real winner. One person that I know will care for my babies…
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Backpack issues
Meanwhile in Arnhem … We can hardly wait, the travel virus rages through our bloodstream, but unfortunately there is nothing left to do but countdown and patiently wait. Because we really want to prepare something, anything… we decide to pack our bags, see if everything fits. Big fun! We happily put all our stuff on the bed to get a good picture of what we have collected. We distribute the electronics and roll all our clothes neatly in a packing cubes. (more about that later) Then we put everything in our backpack. Or so I try. Arnhem we have a problem, I want to take too much stuff or my backpack is too small backpack. Shit. My bag is an Osprey Farpoint 40, fantastic thing, but 6 liters smaller than Jos’ pack. 6 milk cartons! That’s a lot. We critically…
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For the love of layers
It may be a little early, but we are already thinking about what we will take with us on our long journey. That seems very complicated, and yes, I can tell you… it is. We have a target weight of 9 kilos and don’t want to take too much unnecessary ‘what if’ junk. We do not want to be cold, want to be able to hike ánd take beautiful pictures. Warm clothing, walking shoes and a good camera are certainly included. How are we going to take warm sweaters? They are thick and take a lot of our precious space… During our holidays we often take no more than 6.5 kilos, so now 9 kilos is already luxury. We leave the warm clothing at home for most holidays, swimsuit and creditcard are usually sufficient, ghehehe 😉 Merino sheep with one…
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Gimme some shots
Here they are, 408 Malarone tablets for a Malaria free worldtrip. Well in time, you could say… we just couldn’t wait 😉 Last week we received our vaccinations and decided to also order the Malaria tablets as well. After I finally found our yellow vaccination books we made an appointment with ‘Thuisvaccinatie’ (vaccination at home) for Friday afternoon between 14:00 and 18:00. Very convenient in your own home, but that time in the week is asking for trouble. And yes our prayers were answered, the needle lady calls us at six after a long afternoon of waiting that she is in a traffic jam. Sigh… well, wait some more. When she finally arrives at a quarter to seven she does not seem to have all the vaccines with her. Although we never had problems with ‘Thuisvaccinatie’ before, this was a…
