BootsnAll Travel Network



40 days until trip begins

Since I last wrote, I have made significant headway in my trip preparations. I have decided not to get the rabies or Japanese encephalitis vaccines for the time being. Reservations have been made at the Ana Rapu Guesthouse for my stay on Easter Island (www.anarapu.cl for those of you interested in seeing the place). I was originally going to camp but the price was not that much more for a bed and breakfast. Ana Rapu is the name of the guesthouse proprietor. Supposedly she will pick us up at the airport. I am supposed to just ask for Ana when I get there. I guess this works on an island of 3800 people where everyone knows everyone. It kinda of like “Cheers” (everybody knows your name).

For the Fiji leg of my trip my current plans are to visit the Lomaivita Island group. This trip involves several ferry rides. This island group holds the old capital (Levuka) of Fiji and has the only colonial architecture remaining on the islands. For part of my trip I plan on spending a few days on the island of Caqalai which is a fifteen acre, white sand beach island which has a hostel run by a Methodist church. The only way on or off the island is by boat. It is fairly rustic. The act of taking a shower involves pouring a bucket of water over your head. It sounds like the perfect place to enjoy the beach, get away, and meet interesting people.

Yesterday, I performed a trial packing for my trip. I wanted to see how heavy my backpack would be and if it would be big enough. It just fits all of my items with a little room to spare for food or souvenirs. The backpack fully packed weighs 30lbs. There are a few things I still need to put in which will probably bring the final weight to about 33 lbs. I will write a detailed packing list later for those who are interested. This is a picture of the backpack. The green bag is my tent and the red bag is my air mattress. I took off my sleeping bag which will attach to the other side of the bag across from the tent. I am going to try to carry my bag on the plane but to do so I will probably have to check all the external attachments. I would rather lose those things than the bag as I can survive without the tent and other things.

I have added several new features to the blog. If you click on trip route under maps on the right hand side of the screen, it will bring up a map which I will update with my route as my trip progresses. Under my links, the link “trip photos” takes you to a flickr account that I setup to hold most of my pictures as this blog has limited memory storage. There are no pictures there yet.

On the work front, I joined a bowling team for a Junior Achievement charity event on February 10. I taught Junior Achievement when I lived in Houston and like the program. The only problem is I can’t bowl very well. My usual score is somewhere between 80-120. I am not sure anyone else on my team can bowl very well either. It should be interesting.

The mystery friend doesn’t want to be mentioned by name on the blog. As I said some people aren’t comfortable with that. All I will say then is that it is a work associate. Some of you will probably recognize him when he shows up in pictures. He will be coming with me to Easter Island.



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One Response to “40 days until trip begins”

  1. Jessica Says:

    Hey Barry. Well good luck. I think you will be really prepared when you finally get to leave for your trip. I saw this video and thought of your blog. It’s of a group of people who are traveling around the world. They have one for everywhere they go, check em out: http://travelistic.com/video/show/2051
    (USA/Canada)

    http://travelistic.com/video/show/2015

    (new zealand)

  2. Mary Lynn Says:

    Hi, Barry
    Your grandmother just told me about your blog. I’ve been curious about blogs so I thought I’d check it out. Now that I’ve found it, I will be checking in on your journey.
    Be safe.
    Mary Lynn

  3. Posted from United States United States

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