Getting Ready for Africa

Map of Safari Itinerary

I woke up this morning with a million things racing through my mind.

Thursday – that’s tomorrow!! – we are going to Africa. A luxury safari starting in Kenya, to be specific, followed by Tanzania.We are traveling with Micato Luxury Safaris, going on the Hemingway Wing Safari.

We’ve been preparing for months: getting visas and appropriate clothing; shots for typhoid, yellow fever, and hepatitis; and acquiring malaria medication and a large variety of first-aid kit supplies. Micato has been truly wonderful about providing everything we need to know. They even sent us suitcases that meet their size requirements for the bush planes. Yesterday the real frenzy of “what are we packing, and how, and what did they say about…??” and detailed review of packing lists truly set in. 

There are a lot of things that have to be in order. Paperwork including passports and visas and of course our proof of COVID-19 vaccinations. Tanzania requires proof of yellow fever vaccination, so we have that. We will have both printed and e-copies of everything. No plastic bags: Kenya does not allow any kind of single-use plastic bags in the country, not even ziplocks for liquids to go on airplanes. The penalties are very steep if they find even one in your luggage. So we have had to find reusable alternatives, which is actually good.

There are strict weight requirements for what we can take on the safari itself (33 lbs for bag & carry-on combined), so we are weighing everything as we go. “Excess” baggage with things we want only for the flights between home & Nairobi can be left with Micato staff in Nairobi for the in-country duration, so there’s leeway in that regard.

I think at this point that everything we need has actually been acquired, and we can start packing and checking things off the list. Our flight out from Columbia isn’t until early afternoon, so the more ready we get today the more relaxed tomorrow morning can be. A friend will be coming over to feed the cats and check on the house every day, so that’s taken care of.

I will be blogging about our amazing trip every day. You are welcome to subscribe (even temporarily) if you don’t already and would like to get those posts emailed to you. Just use the “subscribe” function over on the right.