Thursday 26 January 2017

Making progress: heading out soon!


 2017 Jan 26

Nota: publicado en Inglés: vamos a editar e incluir versión en español pronto. 

Route Plan:

Since the last post we have been finalising and optimising our “base case” route plan, based on sensible travel distances and times we would like to spend in each place. The early part of the trip is driven partly by visa limitations and partly by the need to make early reservations for some of the places which are booked up early. No doubt we will need to adjust the base case as the trip progresses, and we have left a lot to be planned from the point we leave Botswana for Zambia, however prior to this we now have a detailed plan, to which we need to stick to a great extent.

Visas:

The visas which present the greatest challenge are those for South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana. The first must be obtained only from the Consulate in Caracas, the second we have to obtain in London, and the third can be obtained only from Washington, D.C. Juggling travel to allow us to fulfil existing commitments, while being able to handle the logistics of couriers and visa issue has been an interesting challenge, however we now have both the South African and Botswana visa applications in process, and will be chasing the visa for Namibia immediately before leaving for Nairobi at the end of February.

Vehicle:

We have now officially acquired the Land Cruiser, and have the carnet application in process. We really appreciate the extensive help of Luke in Nairobi in completing a full vehicle inspection and doing some additional maintenance to get the vehicle ready. We’ll pick it up in Nairobi and then focus on some final work to prepare it for the trip: setting it up for sleeping, organising kit stowage, getting and extra spare tyre, etc. We’ll travel to Nairobi with a “minimalist” approach to baggage, focussing on the essential and not the “nice to have” and will also buy a fair number of ítems in Nairobi, rather than hauling them from Colombia, when no doubt they’re readily obtainable in Kenya. 

 

Guides, maps:

We have acquired and loaded guide books, field guides, and a variety of other reference material in the iPad, and will be loading e-maps as well, just before leaving. We have replaced our trusty Colorado 300 GPS with a new GPSMAP 64st, although loading the Africa map has proved a challenge yet to be resolved.

Photography:

We finally decided to get a 400mm lens for the cameras; we have been working with a range of lenses for a while, including a 300m and a 150-500mm, however decided that the 400mm would replace both of these, for considerably less weight.

We also replaced our tired Nikon compact, which we always carry when out and about so that we can take photos when without the DSLRs, with a Canon SX620 HS.

Medical kit:

We have now completed/updated the medical kit, having only to make a new case for everything.

Other kit:

On two recent trips to Canada and the USA we took advantage of MEC and REI to buy some items which we need for camping, such as collapsible camp chairs, a double hammock, and various other bits and pieces.


So, things are falling into place. We have taken advantage of the experience of our South America trip to refine our equipment list, leaving out stuff which we took with us then, and did not need, and adding items which we had not taken and found were essential.

We’ll post again when we have completed preparations, have the visas we need, and are about to set off.

Photos may be used for non-commercial purposes with credit to alanymarce@gmail.com