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O.k., I have to admit that I'm starting to get a little excited right about now View image. I will be in Tegucigalpa in less than 72 hours and things are just starting to fall into place as far as preparations are concerned. This is not to say that there aren't a few dozen things that need to get done between now and Friday, only that a few hundred more are finally under control after a hectic last-minute push.

I'm going to attempt to answer a question I have been asked repeatedly about what it is I am doing -- not "what in the hell are are you doing?!" (though I do get that a bit), but "what in the hell do you have to do to do what you are doing and how are you doing it?" To oversimplify (a lot), what I have been doing can be broken down into five completely arbitrary categories:

(1) getting health issues in order (physical exam, dentist visit, various fun vaccinations),

(2) getting necessary documentation and papers in order (includes passport, proof of certain vaccinations, copies of all docs and travelers checks),

(3) organizing finances (e.g., without notice, your bank might just get suspicious if charges on your MasterCard start rolling in from Zimbabwe and Mozambique),

(4) canceling pre-existing services and storing stuff (my parents' bedroom is now filled with my scotch and origami collection), and

(5) buying new services and new stuff (including, of course, the first few plane tickets).

Really, item 5 is the only one that is remotely interesting and after a while of fussing around with it, I would have to say that its not even that. Allow me to convince you.

The mess above is about half of what I had been planning to pack as of Tuesday afternoon. However, the realization set in today that many of those items will not make it along for the ride and a number of additional items I had planned to bring along will fall by the wayside as well. While I could probably jam all of this stuff into my bag View image (I think the red has a nice "look at me, here I am, please come rob me" shade to it), it won't be much fun to haul the lot of it around for a year or more through cities, rainforests and mountain trails. Or, to address the more immediate future, Honduras.

As I have no experience with trips of this length or nature, I spent plenty of time reading lists others have published in books or on websites and other blogs. This initially led me to purchase all sorts of garbage View image I have never used before and probably never will use, whether or not I am lugging it along on my back. Choosing what to keep and what to leave has not been easy View image. Big ugly timberland boots? Check View image. Pumice stone View image and "Aloegator Green Stuff"? Nooo (a little too metrosexual, sad to say... I swear I did not originally notice the caption "with tea tree oil"). Scuba mask and snorkel? Definite check View image. Midget with monkey and accordion? Ahh... Blame that one on the Larium I just started taking (anti-malarial medication jokes: get used to them now, my sense of humor will only get worse).

So, down to my last 2 days in Saratoga, I spent most of this one running around buying last minute items, getting my yellow fever vaccination, scanning copies of key documents into e-mail attachments at Kinko's, buying out the camera accessory isle at Best Buy and then trying to jam all of the stuff I have accumulated into my bag. After all of the the paring down and jamming most of my clothes into little plastic compression bags, this is what its finally starting to look like, minus the things I will be wearing and carrying onto the plane (in a collapsing duffel that will then fit into the main pack):

The truly sad thing is that this will still probably prove to be too much --- various sources tell me that I will wind up tossing a lot of useless things out that I originally thought would prove invaluable. And yet I still find myself worrying that I will one day find myself stranded and helpless somewhere in the remote Argentine wilderness with the stunned realization that my life would be saved if only I had been bright enough to bring along a pumice stone (with tea tree oil) and some "Aloegator Green Stuff." Sends chills down the spine.

So there you have it. As I now have most of the packing out of the way and the paperwork is in good order, I hope to spend part of Thursday watching Spanish soaps and eating cookies. Life is good. IMS&L out.