Monday, July 12, 2010

In the beginning

It was a sunny day in 2009 when I made the decision that if I did not travel some far off places, it would never happen. And so that brings me to July 2010. . .

I have negotiated with my office a year of unpaid leave (yes you read that right, a year!), so I am starting my odyssey in just a few weeks.Most of the important things have now been 'almost' dealt with. The house in Scotland is with a letting agency, and the GHA have pumped me full of injections for this that and the other - the only warning being not to drink too much water in case my newly punctured skin starts to leak. My 6 month supply of antimalarial tablets will arrive on Wednesday leaving me just some minor financial details to iron out.

So - to the Epic trip. . . I will be starting in South Africa and working my way up to Kenya over a six month period. On my way I intend to visit Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda. There will be two stops for voluntary work in this period.
Once in Zimbabwe where I hope to help at a lion conservation site near Victoria Falls. After this I will have a four week stop in Malawi to help teach children there who have very few facilities. My understanding is that currently there is one teacher for every 200 students in this area.
After this the explring begins in earnest. Dar Es Salaam and Zanzibar in Tanzania need to be visited before I head back inland towards Rwanda (where the 1994 genocide involving Hutu and Tutsi took place). Here I hope to track the mountain gorillas that regularly cross between Rwanda and the Congo. This if I am honest is the most important part of this trip for me as my greatest interest while studying Psychology was the evolution of intelligence, more specifically in our fellow primates.

That is the plan for the first 6 months after which everything gets a lot more vague! I hope to spend three months in India before crossing over to Thailand for the final stretch in a tropical paradise (that is of course only if the Thai kindly stop their protesting in time for my arrival).

For now I have three weeks left at work while I wrack my brains trying to ensure I forget nothing important. Time to head out and get some more supplies in town!

Apologies for my awful writing style. . I guess I have a year to work on and improve it :)

3 comments:

  1. Loving it! Keep the updates rolling, make sure you let us know on Tardbook when there's an update.

    You are soooooo going to get fucking murdered in your first week in SA though :(

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  2. Well if it doesnt happen in SA there's always my mate Mugabe. .. or the lions. . or the viruses. . or the water. . . mummy!!

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  3. You do realise that if we do meet up in Thailand or Malaysia (let's say Malaysia for just now until the Thai's stop beating each other with big sticks!) then between us we will have circumnavigated the planet?

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