The Moped Diaries

The cardboard boxes have arrived and it’s now time to prepare for final departure and vacate the apartment. To assist with the packing, Dulcie carefully split her shoe collection into three neat piles; ones for taking to South America (i.e. hiking boots); ones for taking to the charity shop (i.e. unwearable sandals, which she shouldn’t have bought in the first place!!) and ones to go to Canada (i.e. smart, sensible working shoes). I then very diligently packed the ones for Canada in a cardboard box and sealed it up ready for dispatch. Unfortunately, this means Dulcie will have to wear her hiking boots to work for the next week and a half………….. I was not popular. Future packing of Dulcie’s things will only be done under strict supervision.

A trip to the remarkably efficient travel clinic for our inoculations and prescriptions has left me feeling as indestructible as my childhood hero, Captain Scarlet (albeit with sore shoulders from the injections). A quick recap of our previous inoculations revealed that we needed all four (FOUR!) of the recommended injections. The doctor very kindly offered to do these injections in two sessions but Dulcie (hard as nails and no stranger to surgical procedures) agreed to have all four at once – I could hardly wimp out now.

Along with the malaria tablets we were also provided with a prescription for extreme diarrhea; two words which should never be used together.

Eight weeks to go and Dulcie is getting very worried that her pineapple will not ripen in time!

A “Thermarest mat” is a very clever invention; it is a self-inflating mattress designed by engineering geeks for outdoor-type people to use in tents. The theory is that you roll out this limp rubber sheet, open the stopper and the thing magically sucks in air and turns into something you can sleep on. Those hoping to see a luxury, king size, double sprung bed appear will be sadly disappointed. After ten minutes of waiting, my thermarest mat was barley half an inch thick. The instructions do say that you can assist the inflation process and increase firmness by adding a few breaths of air into the mat, however, doing this demonstrates the mat’s excellent self-deflating properties as each breath of air put into the mat is immediately expelled!! The spots before my eyes informed me that maybe I should stop this exercise and allow the mat to do its own thing; I just hope that assisted inflation is not required at 12,000ft up on the Inca Trail.

This is the route we will be following around South America. Clink on the link to Exodus (on the right of your screen) to see the full itinerary.

We watched the film “The Motorcycle Diaries” last weekend which charts the young Che Guevara’s travels around South America with his pal on a beaten up old Norton. This was intended to give us a feel for our upcoming travels but it also inspired me to start memorialising my thoughts in this fancy blog. It is now less than three months before our departure and I am continuing to seesaw between euphoric feelings of immense freedom at the thought of what we are planning and buttock clenching terror when I mentally picture the primitive or non-existant toilet facilities which we will face. Let’s just hope there are some soft leaves nearby.