Packing

A travel writing 'tip' I once saw said something along the lines of 'start in the middle of the action, not in the departure lounge'.  I feel therefore that I ought to open this blog with a swashbuckling account of an elephant stampede, the roaring of a pride of hungry lions, or an inspiring narrative of how I singlehandedly transformed the fortunes of an entire continent but........I'm in Essex, I can't sleep and it's drizzling a bit so instead, dear reader, I'll tell the tale of me doing my packing. Are you sitting comfortably?

My rucksack is two thirds full, mostly it seems with paperbacks.  For the most part I'm keeping to an African / travel writing theme:

Cameroon with Egbert - Dervla Murphy (struggling to get into this at the moment, though I highly recommend 'Full Tilt - Ireland to India with a Bicycle' by the same author).
The Sirius Mystery - Robert Temple (apparently very controversial, but follows on from a trip to Mali a year ago)
The Masque of Africa - VS Naipaul (no idea what this is about, never read anything by Naipaul either, so should be interesting)
Hidden Bhutan - Martin Uitz (wrong continent I know, but I had a brilliant trip there a few months ago)
The Year of the Flood - Margaret Atwood
The Motorcycle Diaries - Che Guevara
And an autobiography by Stephen Fry, also (with a view to a bit of travel after the assignment) Bradt guides to Cameroon and Ghana and the Lonely Planet on West Africa. Oh, and various papers / books provided by http://www.afid.org.uk/

I always try to travel light, my view is that whatever I take I'll have to carry round with me, so don't take anything I don't need.  I always take the same rucksack my parents bought for me when I was 12 - so it's not a full size rucksack, but it forces me to keep everything to a minimum.  I could, and probably should, have brought a grown up rucksack by now but......well it's been my main travel buddy for nearly a quarter of a century (help, I'm getting old!) and, to be honest, I can't help being a bit sentimental about it.

Apart from the books, it seems to be mostly filled with Malarone - about 1500 boxes of the sodding things.  I'm also taking a few clothes and a toothbrush.

Things that I know I've forgotten* include:

First Aid Kit
Insect Repellent

*List to be extended on arrival in Accra.

And that, as the saying goes, is that.  If anyone is still reading, stay with me. If anyone's not, that's good too - no shame in chuntering away to yourself in cyberspace............the next one will be more eventful, I promise.  Maybe.