The truck arrives in two hours

True to my prediction, I'm still packing almost up until the mover arrives. Right now I'm at the cafe, taking a short break--no coffee left in the apartment.

Advantages of being a pack rat

I'm not auditioning for "Hoarders", but let's just say I don't throw out a lot (I did manage a bit of a purge when packing up my apartment though, and I'm kind of looking forward to life mediated by a backpack and a computer). Occasionally this habit pays off, as now when I can pack with the aid of a checklist I made for a similar trip to Mexico in 2001. Some things on the list have changed, of course: no more film or travellers' cheques; addition of computer and Kindle.

Dukoral

Yesterday I discovered that the expensive Dukoral vaccine (against cholera and traveller's diarrhea) that has been sitting in my fridge for the last several weeks ought to have been taken two weeks before travelling. Oh well. Better late than never. It's oral, not a jab, so I mixed and ingested dose 1 today. Dose 2 should be taken in a week. Luckily for me, it can be kept at room temperature for up to two weeks, so it will accompany me to Chile. There's not much danger of cholera, and as for the other--well it's happened on every other trip so why not this one? At least you can drink the water in Chile (yes, really, you can).

Update (Oct. 6, 2010): drank the second batch of Kool-aid today, prepared with salubrious Santiago tap water, no less. So I should be good to go in a week or two.

Headed for South America

I'm flying to Santiago, Chile this Friday, Oct. 1, 2010 and returning Dec. 8, 2010. Along the way I expect to make incursions into Peru and Argentina, possibly Bolivia. Hopefully I'll be able to keep you up to date on what I'm doing. There's no excuse not to really...after having supper the other day with one of my gadget guy friends, I got fired up and bought a netbook for the trip (Acer Aspire One). With WiFi fairly ubiquitous in Chile (or so I hear) I should have plenty of connectivity.