Weighty Concerns

I finished packing and weighed everything. I prefer to travel light, but it's hard to do "light" on Kili. Even harder when you have to drag your Kili gear for a week after the climb.

I was up til 1:00am weighing and figuring things. What will stay at the hotel and what will go up the mountain. What will be given away or consumed. What has to stay with me at all times. What I can really leave out.

My two duffels weigh 27lbs and 24lbs. Yeah that's a lot. But that includes 6-7lbs of stuff I'm taking over to donate to a school: markers, chalk, pens and - since it's World Cup season - a youth-size soccer ball with an air pump. I took out a fleece, a vest and an extra t-shirt. Only 2lbs or so, but that's progress!

My daypack, which I'm carrying on, is around 18lbs. This includes most of my camera gear and my netbook.


My mountain weight is probably OK. The guide will shake out my gear the day before, so if I need to shed stuff he will definitely let me know. I have a personal porter who can carry my daypack for me, but I'll probably have him carry my tripod (9lbs, with a not-very-light panoramic head) most of the time. If the pack gets to be too much, he gets the pack and I'll get the tripod.

Oh yeah, there's also a 33lb baggage limit on internal flights. I will have shed some weight by then (the donated stuff, snacks, gifts) but I'm going to be over that limit by a weighs. (ha!) 

Carol from Kiliwarriors says there's no scale at the bush airstrip and it's pretty much an honor system. It's also ultimately up to the pilot whether to take excess baggage in the first place. She said previous clients have been over the limit by a little bit and it hasn't been a problem. I will find out firsthand just how strict that rule is.

The Little Things

As departure gets closer, the things I have to deal with get smaller. Airfare, clothing, insurance and luggage were taken care of months ago. Doctor visits and shots were not too long ago. But the last two weeks have been chasing down the little things, like small bottles to keep pills in, a moneybelt, SD cards, permethrin to treat my safari clothes. And there are chores, like eating up the food that won't keep while I'm gone, paying bills and holding the mail.

For instance, this afternoon was spent cashing in my change jar ($93!), buying some brightly colored cable ties (for securing bag zippers), dropping off a tote for my CSA sharesitter (and getting some intel on Delta's Sky Club locations - thanks Jodi!), buy some of the aforementioned pill bottles, and waterproofing my boots.

The boots (a solid pair of old-school all-leather wafflestompers made by Alico) feel pretty well broken in. I filled the large seam around the sole with a thin liquid wax. It seemed like the best way to fill the stitch holes. Then a generous helping of Sno-Seal, which I think is the end-all be-all of waterproofing products. It's a lot easier to apply if you have a hairdryer to melt the beeswax. And I bought a hairdryer expressly for this reason. Not enough hair to need it for its intended purpose.

I still have to permethrin-ize my safari clothes, find some Gatorade powder, count my vitamins, charge and recharge all my toys, buy a circular polarizer for my new lens, get a haircut, put Picasa on my netbook... I'll need a vacation just to recover from preparing for this vacation.

"Oooh, I'm jealous!"

Who said that to me?

National Geographic photographer David Evans.

I met him at an alumni event up here in DC last week, where he showed some of his pics and talked about life as a globetrotting photog.

Now, this dude's been all over the place: Chad, Brazil, Romania, China. For a living. And he tells me he's jealous of my Kili trek. Wow.

I got to pick his brain a bit about lenses. I was thinking about getting a wide-angle zoom. He suggested I look at fixed focal-length lenses, but said the jack-of-all-trades kit lens I had (18-135mm Nikon AF) might do just fine as a travel solution. Changing lenses in the bush can be risky.

I also asked him if telecoverters were worth it. The answer was pretty diplomatic: He didn't think so. (Then again, he can justify buying top-shelf telephoto glass and has no need for them). "But try it. If it works for you, great!"

So OK, I'll give the teleconverter a miss. Time to shop for a lens. :)