Molo!!

Four sleeps to go and I’m as ready as I can be – I am packed, vaccinated and have finished my prescribed reading (“How to Amputate your Own Leg and Other Ways to Stay out of Trouble in a War Zone”- thanks Jason and Sian) and viewing (enlightening clip of the Mozambique rats trained to detect TNT on the minefields – thanks Claud) and I have learnt my important Xhosa greeting “molo ndilahlekile” (Hello I am lost).

Thanks also to everyone for the well wishes and advice on what to do if kidnapped (thanks Jordan) /caught in cross-fire / chased by mambas. As my first night will be spent in a tent somewhere near Soweto it may be redundant after next weekend anyway.

It is highly unlikely that I will have access to a computer …or electricity … for the first part of trek (the highlighted features of most campsites I’ve read is “running water”), so it may be a week or so before I get to post. For the people who were asking if I had blogged my Laos trip, I didn't (this is all so new to me) but you can find it at google docs : https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B3x4A-xlsAA8Zjg2MTNjYWMtNjU0YS00ZTcyLWJiOGItYTg2MTBiOWNkODUz&hl=en

Sobonana

Fi xx

A week to go and my room looks like the back dorm of the Dublin youth hostel - an explosion of Lonely Planet Guides, agent-orange-strength mosquito repellant, trousers that zip into shorts (trorts?), headlamps, sleeping sheets, first-aid kits, tundra ready sleeping bag and - in the centre of the maelstrom optimistically gaping, a teeny little backpack ... somehow I think the whole rolling-clothes-space-saving packing technique isn't going to cut it ...

So I figure, rather than send hundreds of emails about my trips, I'll try blogging and see how that goes. I leave in two weeks for Mozambique, South Africa and Swaziland and I'm extremely excited. I'm not daunted at ALL by personal stories of hijacked tour buses, elephant attacks, rampaging hippos and the enthusiasm of my friends to launch a ransom fund. I DO however regret making the said ransom-fund-friends the beneficiaries of my will ...