aside from the camper-based excitement, there is lots of other excitement happening as well.
i went to a travel clinic on thursday and got vaccinated against hepatitis A, typhoid and tetanus (the result of which is two insanely sore, useless, weak little t-rex arms that are driving me crazy). i'm also hoping to get a yellow fever vaccine, but i have to get allergy tested first because it's an egg-grown vaccine, and i'm sensitive to eggs (not like throat-closing-up sensitive, but they make me quite ill, and that's from eating them, who knows what will happen when i'm injected with them...). i also have to pick up a prescription for malaria pills. hopefully the allergy testing and vaccines will be taken care of this week, and we can leave the end of this week or next weekend. that's the goal!!
i've been researching for the last few days solid, it's all i do now. it's a good thing i don't have a job!
i've made note of all the different currency exchange rates for every country in central and south america. obviously these things fluctuate, but this way we'll have at least a rough idea of what the exchange should be so that we can ensure we're not losing tons of money when we change it at borders.
as well, i have spent countless hours on this wiki http://wikioverland.org/ compiling a document with basic information on every country in C/SA with border crossing procedures, road conditions, etc. it has been endlessly helpful.
we need to make copious amounts of copies of our passports, drivers licenses, vehicle registration and insurance and etc. apparently many borders require 1-4 copies of these documents, and handing over copies also means corrupt officials can't bribe you to get back your originals. oh, the things i am learning!
we have also decided that we'd like to take some spanish lessons. i have a very basic understanding of spanish (i can order beers, ask where the bathroom is, say please and thank you, etc) but mike knows absoloutly no spanish, and mine is not really sufficient for a trip like this. i've pretty much settled on oaxaca, mexico as the place to do this. it seems to be a lovely city with lots of interesting things around it (ruins, art and museums, etc), and has many spanish schools to choose from. i've taken down the details of 6 different schools, but we're not going to book in advance, we plan to just find a place we like once we get there. we are also interested in taking a mexican cooking class, and a few offer those as well! our decision on a school may also be dependent on them having a safe place we can park the truck, etc. there is one school that is very close to a sushi place, and i'm not going to lie, it's swaying me.
i've also made the decision to bring my tablet. there's a risk that it will be stolen, but i suppose there are always such risks in life, and considering how handy it will be, i think it's worth it. as well, i got it second hand for about $150 so if it does grow legs it won't be the end of the world. i'm going to pick up a little keyboard to go with it, to make writing emails and blog posts easier. this also means that i'll be able to do such things on the road, and then simply upload them when i have an internet connection, as opposed to sitting in an internet cafe for hours transcribing from my journal. this also means that i'll be able to bring a few precious movies and things, haha! i've clearly got star wars on there, and firefly and die hard. gotta have my priorities straight.
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