“This might hurt a little” says the travel nurse as she jabs my upper arm for the fifth time. I’m starting to feel like a walking pin cushion.
I scuttle away with a long list of prescriptions and ‘necessary’ first aid kit items. Stopping at Boots on the way back to work, I pick it all up and am thinking I may need to bring an extra piece of luggage for my mobile emergency clinic. I can’t possibly need this much! But what to cut?
My number one bit of unsolicited advice for new long-term travellers is to take less than you think you need. A lot less. This is easy enough to agree to, until you start baggage triage. Do I cut the pain medication, malaria pills, or anti-diarrheal? How many bandages to take? How many bottles of repellant? And that’s just the first aid stuff…
The list keeps growing. The ‘go light’ motto is such a hard one to follow.
A similar packing shot from earlier travels
There’s not much time left to get everything in order. Thinking of this causes a dropping sensation in my gut which probably won’t go away until I’m on the plane. I have a list constantly looping through my head – wrap everything up at work, pack the bags and then the rest of my belongings into a few boxes… not to mention the final social requirements of seeing every single person I know before I go, even though 3 months are going to pass by so quickly that no one will even notice I’m gone. Time always seems to stretch out far when we look ahead, yet compresses drastically on looking back.
The good news is the flights are now purchased. I used Expedia’s multi stop option and got a pretty cheap flight in and out of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, via Dubai. From there I’ll take another flight to Namibia, via Johannesburg, where I will meet the Hot Rock crew. It’s probably the most inefficient route I could take, but you get what you pay for.
I don’t mind, as I get a week alone in Dar Es Salaam before heading to Namibia. As of yet I have NO idea what I’m going to do there… and confess to being utterly ignorant of Tanzania and nearby Zanzibar. It will be an adventure to figure things out as I go, but I’m still hoping to get a few minutes to at least flip through a guide book or something before getting on the plane! Am very excited.
The only major thing left is my passport, currently at the embassy, which in itself makes me nervous. They seem to know when you’re in a hurry. All I requested were new pages to be added. A friend of mine just got a new passport in a week. I sent mine in over a week ago for new pages and have nothing. Tick tock tick tock… I hope it’s not too tattered for them. This could get complicated. Wish me luck.
This article originally appeared on MSN UK Travel.
