On our way

Time was going to Africa required colonial ambitions or the fever brought on by some megalomaniacal need to find the source of the Nile or the last remaining golden-rumped lion tamarin. It was hard. Preparations were undertaken many months in advance and required provisions enough to sustain tens of men for months. Boat passage had to be secured, and a long, ugly, seasick-befouled journey undertaken. When the travelers said goodbye to loved ones, and creditors, it was with the mutual understanding that Africa might let you in, but it might just not let you out.

We’ve only traveled half way, writing this from London, but so far for us it has been exceedingly easy. Before departing we got a visa ($80). We were dosed with a tropical disease buffet that included yellow fever, meningitis, hepatitis A and typhoid ($350 total for each of us). We got 128 malaria pills ($30 for each of us), one for each day we’re in Ghana, starting two days before entering the country and continuing 28 days after leaving.

We bought plane tickets ($1,300/ea). We visited REI. We packed. And then we joined a very nicely appointed British Airlines flight and flew. (We did have to stop in L.A., which may actually even the score, but nevermind.)

Our provisions are few. I have a backpack, Shawn hers, and we each have another small carry-on. We had also agreed some weeks earlier to bringing a “couple of boxes of T-shirts” for Global Mamas, the group Shawn will be working with. They were delivered to Shawn’s parents’ place two days before our departure. When I heard Fed Ex drop them off on the deck I thought pieces of Sputnik had crashed to earth. Small boxes of t-shirts these were not. Instead, we found three 50-lb bags sitting there like the three heads from Easter Island (see pic above).

But we managed. We got the bags, and ourselves, from Portland to L.A. and then from L.A. to London with relative ease and in pretty good comfort. Once in London, the bags were conveniently stowed in left luggage to await our departure to Accra, Ghana on Friday. If we return to find the attendants wearing bright new African shirts, we’ll know someone took their tip early.

And now, after a full day’s travel, I’m sitting in a hotel near the Bayswater tube stop near London’s Notting Hill neighborhood. Shawn is sleeping and I am typing by the light of a headlamp (one of the REI purchases, $19.95). I am dog tired. But it has been a glorious day and half. I love that travel weariness.