Preparation: 10 days 'til 10 month hiatus

Ten days from now, we’ll pry ourselves from our mothers’ loving, death grip hugs at Denver International Airport and be off to Rio de Janeiro…and a few other places, but we’ll get to that later.

Prepping for a ten month trip to, well, just about everywhere has been an interesting ride all in its own. First we tackled the typhoid, tetanus, Hepatitis A and yellow fever immunizations in one doctor’s visit, and sat through a two hour briefing informing us that we’ll need to be on anti-malarial pills the entire trip and will DEFINTELY get sick since we plan to eat lots of street food (mmm) and drink questionable water. Besides me passing out on the exam table, the mild hallucinogenic dreams brought on by the yellow fever shot and mentally accepting that diarrhea will play a large role in my ten months of traveling with my boyfriend, medical prep was a piece of cake.  

We also had to send our passports to the Brazilian, Kenyan and Tanzanian embassies for Visas. Each time, we had to send a new pair of passport photos with our applications, passports, and of course some moneys. While the Brazil Visa was the only that specified a ‘neutral expression’ in the photo, I somehow managed to look like a vicious criminal taking a mug shot in every single photo I submitted. Cute. I’d like to blame it on the fine photography of Walgreens, and not the fact that I’m unbearably non-photogenic, but future photos posted to this blog are sure to confirm Walgreens was NOT the one at fault…

Since then, it’s been a whirlwind of reading travel lit and trips to REI and Wilderness Exchange (and maybe a trip or two for me to Free People), resulting in this lovely living room:

Very much looking forward to our struggle to get alllll of this (plus a ton not pictured, including but not limited to, flowy skirts, swimsuit cover-ups, and other completely unnecessary items I “plan” on bringing) into one backpack.  He won’t admit it, but Zach is looking forward to saying I told you so when I am only able to pack half of what I planned on. Can’t say I blame him.