Resignation and Rabies

So now it's official- I gave my notice to my job this week. This was the last step to take before we start screaming our plans from the rooftops (although we have been mostly doing that for months- hence this blog...). My two supervisors reacted very well, with emotions ranging from relief that I was leaving for personal, not professional, reasons, to disappointment that I had only been with the company for a little over a year, to excitement and support for what we are planning to do. I really couldn't have asked for a better response.

Next on our to-do list: vaccines. We went for a consultation at the vaccination center this week and sat through a two hour monologue by a young doctor about all of the different exotic diseases we are going to die from during the trip. She gave us her recommendations, some of which we will ignore, and we'll start getting the shots in October. She recommended measles, mumps, diphtheria and tetanus, which we will get; rabies, which we won't; yellow fever, hepatitis A and B, which we will get; Japanese encephalitis and typhoid, which we probably won't; and emergency malaria pills. She also explained that we need to prepare ourselves to basically have diarrhea the entire trip. Awesome. Honestly, we aren't all that worried about the big diseases. We of course want to protect ourselves with vaccinations and knowledge about the risks, but we do not want to load up on vaccinations that are only 50% effective, like typhoid. Where I personally am concerned is my stomach during the trip. I have a super-sensitive stomach and no self control when it comes to what I eat, so I'm expecting to suffer considerably as a result of my eating choices (like the time I had a fish sandwich from a street vendor in Morocco in 90 degree heat. Terrible decision.)

Beyond confirming our departure with our companies and worrying about diarrhea, we are now working to figure out volunteering for South America, planning our moving out plan of attack and finalizing our equipment. Vincent is nearly finished with his equipment and is ready for a test-pack. I'm still lagging behind, but once I have everything, we will do an equipment post to show what we are bringing. We plan to try to carry less than 12 kilos on our backs and I would really like to shoot for 10, so packing will be a challenge. I will document that adventure when we come to it. In the meantime, this is our current packing list, which I am religiously following and Vincent is pointedly ignoring: RTW 2012 Packing list

So, as we are finally getting serious about our planning, I will be posting more often with updates on our progress. It's coming up so quickly!!

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