Not too long to go now. Trying to make sure that there is nothing forgotten. I have a couple of annual travel policies, but I decided to check a few things on both of them. Moto taxis are a common form of transport in Rwanda. We are covered, but only if the engine size is less than 125cc and we wear helmets. Interesting - what is the Kirirwandra for "is the engine size less than 125cc?" and then understanding the answer and even harder not taking if if the answer is no when it may be the only form of transport? My guess is that the motos will be mostly 125cc.
The next one threw them. In one policy, it says
Part D1) – Catastrophe
If, during your journey, you can no longer stay at your pre-booked and prepaid accommodation because of:
– fire;
– storm;
– lightning;
– avalanche;
– explosion;
– hurricane;
– earthquake;
– flood;
– tidal wave;
– medical epidemic;
– pandemic.
we will pay the necessary extra travel and accommodation expenses to allow you to continue with your journey, or return to the UK if you cannot continue with your journey, up to a maximum of £500 per person.
Well the night before I had been watching Richard Hammond's "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" on TV. In this was the volcanic lake of Nyiragongo, the biggest volcanic lake on the planet, in Africa. Well as a youngster I was a mad keen geologist, and as my wife can testify, I still have a passing interest, which is why she has been dragged through a still steaming crater in Hawaii that had me excited because it erupted the year she was born (we were on a 25th anniversary holiday at the time) and walked across still flowing lava.
So a quick Google and I discovered that it is in the Volcanoes National Park where we are going, but on the Democratic Republic of Congo side. Then I discovered that Goma is the nearest town, and back in 2002 the lava flowed across the runway at Goma Airport and people were evacuated back to Gisenyi, on the Rwandan side of the border - where we plan to spend a couple of nights.
So I asked the insurance company if we would be covered if our pre-booked accommodation had to be cancelled due to lava flow, as this is a remote possibility, but it is indeed a possibility - after all, it got pretty close within the last 10 years. The answer was no, but any claim would be looked at if it happened and we had to make a claim. I suppose one could argue that it is a flood - a flood of lava, as they don't specify that "flood" has to be of water.
Next was the bank for currency. The guide books and people in the country tell you that you should bring specific denominations of post 2006 US dollars - the bank, one of the biggest in the UK doesn't deal in Rwandan Francs. This is possibly not surprising as I discovered that according to the latest figures I could find, the total UK annual imports from Rwanda are £280,000 - less than half a pence for every inhabitant in the UK. If everyone in the UK spend the very smallest coin in our currency, we would double our imports. We export 10x to Rwanda than we import, and this is to one of the 20 poorest countries in the world. It seems like we have a long way to go to get a fair balance, and much opportunity for FairTrade, provided that is not at the expense of feeding the people there.
Needless to say, the UK's largest bank could not even tell me what denomination notes they would give me, nor that they would be post 2006.
We are constantly told that we are a 24/7 society and you can get anything and everything you need from our wonderful service culture - service industries being touted by our politicians as our future, but getting a post 2006 hundred dollar bill is going to be a hit and miss affair.
So once again I am left wondering if the UK is really advanced as we think we are.
After the first order went missing, I now have the basic filters for the new camera, and the various other gizmos. The best of these is a solar cell with built in 2000mAhr battery that weighs less than 300g. Thus you can use it to charge things such as phones, and the battery allows a couple of phone charges even when there is no light e.g. at night. It can also be charged from a USB socket, which is now the standard for all phone charges in Europe, so I can use this as an intermediary and save myself lots of adapters and chargers.
Friday, 22 July 2011
Friday, 15 July 2011
Rabies vaccination
Yesterday I got the first of my rabies vaccinations. Because we are going Golden Monkey tracking (we couldn't get permits to see the Gorillas - these sell out a year in advance), this puts us at higher risk. We had our vaccinations scheduled with our local medical practice, but they had called up at teatime the day before the rabies vaccinations were due to start saying that they didn't have any vaccine and couldn't get any, and our only chance was to go to a travel clinic that had it in stock. We have sorted this out, but due to the strict time intervals between the three vaccinations, I will already be on the plane by the time of the third.
I sometime think that it is the UK that is the third world country. We may have the technology, but it doesn't seem to stretch to being able to keep vaccines in stock. Some of the other travel advice is proving just as difficult. It is recommended that any wounds are washed out with a liquid antiseptic or iodine. I had already got the former, but our nurse recommended the latter as being more effective against a possible rabid bite (remember I will only have had 2 out of the 3 vaccinations before leaving). So I tried to buy some in Boots - the largest pharmacy in the UK. The best they could manage would be to order me a half litre bottle of the stuff, and the better stuff for travelling they no longer can get. They suggested trying another pharmacy who might have different suppliers.
I was reminded of Camilla's tale of how to get the most luggage onto a plane with the news today that someone had made a coat specially for this:
Apparently it holds up to 15kg, which is two and a half times some airlines hand baggage limits. The inventor designed it when Ryanair (probably the world's least favourite airline) hiked their luggage charges. It will now only be a matter of time before they introduce charges for the number of items of clothing you wear and passengers have to resort to drug runner tactics to get their luggage on board.
The sun has just come out, so I can test the latest "dadget" (Dad's gadget) - a small solar panel with built in battery that can then be used to charge mobile phones etc.
There is bound to be something I forget - one of the hazard's of growing older. One of my two most memorable faux pas were the time we arrived on a campsite in the Loire, having driven down from Paris where we were living at the time, only to find the tent poles were still back in Paris (what had actually happened was the trip had been going to happen several days earlier, but then one of the kids was ill, so the car was part unloaded, but not everything got put back in at the last minute). The second one was just as we were leaving the house to go to the airport, my phone reminded me of the flight, but showed BHX (Birmingham) and not BRS (Bristol), and BHX is 140km further away. We made it before the flight was due to leave, but not before checkin had closed. The next flight would not make the connection, and there was no connection for another two days. A bit of laptop browsing and I was able to get an Easyjet flight from a different airport, get there by train and bus, make the flight and get to Athens only a couple of hours later than the original plan. You will never not make mistakes (there is an English saying "those who don't make mistakes don't make anything) - it is how you deal with them.
But despite lists (oh yes, I have a spreadsheet with every item of underwear and its weight listed separately), I still can't help feeling that there is something I have missed.
I sometime think that it is the UK that is the third world country. We may have the technology, but it doesn't seem to stretch to being able to keep vaccines in stock. Some of the other travel advice is proving just as difficult. It is recommended that any wounds are washed out with a liquid antiseptic or iodine. I had already got the former, but our nurse recommended the latter as being more effective against a possible rabid bite (remember I will only have had 2 out of the 3 vaccinations before leaving). So I tried to buy some in Boots - the largest pharmacy in the UK. The best they could manage would be to order me a half litre bottle of the stuff, and the better stuff for travelling they no longer can get. They suggested trying another pharmacy who might have different suppliers.
I was reminded of Camilla's tale of how to get the most luggage onto a plane with the news today that someone had made a coat specially for this:
Apparently it holds up to 15kg, which is two and a half times some airlines hand baggage limits. The inventor designed it when Ryanair (probably the world's least favourite airline) hiked their luggage charges. It will now only be a matter of time before they introduce charges for the number of items of clothing you wear and passengers have to resort to drug runner tactics to get their luggage on board.
The sun has just come out, so I can test the latest "dadget" (Dad's gadget) - a small solar panel with built in battery that can then be used to charge mobile phones etc.
There is bound to be something I forget - one of the hazard's of growing older. One of my two most memorable faux pas were the time we arrived on a campsite in the Loire, having driven down from Paris where we were living at the time, only to find the tent poles were still back in Paris (what had actually happened was the trip had been going to happen several days earlier, but then one of the kids was ill, so the car was part unloaded, but not everything got put back in at the last minute). The second one was just as we were leaving the house to go to the airport, my phone reminded me of the flight, but showed BHX (Birmingham) and not BRS (Bristol), and BHX is 140km further away. We made it before the flight was due to leave, but not before checkin had closed. The next flight would not make the connection, and there was no connection for another two days. A bit of laptop browsing and I was able to get an Easyjet flight from a different airport, get there by train and bus, make the flight and get to Athens only a couple of hours later than the original plan. You will never not make mistakes (there is an English saying "those who don't make mistakes don't make anything) - it is how you deal with them.
But despite lists (oh yes, I have a spreadsheet with every item of underwear and its weight listed separately), I still can't help feeling that there is something I have missed.
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Getting started
Although I have travelled extensively, it has been in the western world - the safe cocoons of Europe and North America, apart from an accidental excursions through the West Bank (don't believe the news - it was actually a nice and friendly place).
So with our daughter working in Rwanda (see her blog), we are taking the opportunity to pay her a visit. Now I had researched the country and some of the risks before she went - not that I could or would influence her choices, but so that I would have some facts behind any sensationalist headlines. My own view of the press is not one of high respect - at first hand I have seen events where the press reporting bore no resemblance to what actually happened. After all, why spoil fiction with facts?
So I know that despite the genocide, being one of the poorest countries, it is also one of the safest and least corrupt countries in Africa. As a country, it is showing a remarkable recovery. It is quite a densely populated country - about the size of Wales but with about 3 times the population, and a growing population.
Preparations are interesting, to say the least. Lots of vaccinations, not helped by our rabies vaccinations being cancelled due to a shortage of rabies vaccines in the UK, so a panic to find an alternative source. It is not a required vaccination, but Golden Monkey tracking, something we are signed up to do, is a higher risk activity.
We are also going to be travelling around the country for about a week of the time, and will do this mostly as the locals do - on what I am led to believe are rather crowded buses. Thus, a modest sized rucksack that can be held on your knee is what is advised by our daughter. So far, I have managed to get a week of everything I need, including all the eelctronics, down into a pack which weighs around 11.5kg - a lot less than my wallet now does. I have renewed my "man at Rohan" look, something the rest of my family disown, but then again, I have never claimed to be a fashion icon.
Preparations have also included agonising over a new camera. I am cautioned against taking an expensive camera, or a big one that is obvious. Against this, I love phototgraphy and taking pictures is one of the reasons for going. In the end, I have compromised and bought a "bridge" camera - one that looks like a digital SLR but is a bit lighter and smaller and does not have interchangeable lenses, which is where the weight of an SLR adds up. The pictures will not be quite the same quality, as the sensors used are smaller than those in a DSLR, and the low light performance is nothing like as good. However, since I will not be out after dusk most of the time, this is of less importance. What is good, is a 24x optically stabilised zoom lens. Initially I was disappointed with the image quality from my first tests, which I did in automatic mode. Then I switched to a semi-automatic mode as I do on my DLSR and the quality improvement was staggering. Test shots resolved a little of the detail of people on a hilltop 3 miles away. So it looks like I should be able to get safer shots of wildlife than with my last camera, where the black bear in Yellowstone got a little close for comfort.
So with our daughter working in Rwanda (see her blog), we are taking the opportunity to pay her a visit. Now I had researched the country and some of the risks before she went - not that I could or would influence her choices, but so that I would have some facts behind any sensationalist headlines. My own view of the press is not one of high respect - at first hand I have seen events where the press reporting bore no resemblance to what actually happened. After all, why spoil fiction with facts?
So I know that despite the genocide, being one of the poorest countries, it is also one of the safest and least corrupt countries in Africa. As a country, it is showing a remarkable recovery. It is quite a densely populated country - about the size of Wales but with about 3 times the population, and a growing population.
Preparations are interesting, to say the least. Lots of vaccinations, not helped by our rabies vaccinations being cancelled due to a shortage of rabies vaccines in the UK, so a panic to find an alternative source. It is not a required vaccination, but Golden Monkey tracking, something we are signed up to do, is a higher risk activity.
We are also going to be travelling around the country for about a week of the time, and will do this mostly as the locals do - on what I am led to believe are rather crowded buses. Thus, a modest sized rucksack that can be held on your knee is what is advised by our daughter. So far, I have managed to get a week of everything I need, including all the eelctronics, down into a pack which weighs around 11.5kg - a lot less than my wallet now does. I have renewed my "man at Rohan" look, something the rest of my family disown, but then again, I have never claimed to be a fashion icon.
Preparations have also included agonising over a new camera. I am cautioned against taking an expensive camera, or a big one that is obvious. Against this, I love phototgraphy and taking pictures is one of the reasons for going. In the end, I have compromised and bought a "bridge" camera - one that looks like a digital SLR but is a bit lighter and smaller and does not have interchangeable lenses, which is where the weight of an SLR adds up. The pictures will not be quite the same quality, as the sensors used are smaller than those in a DSLR, and the low light performance is nothing like as good. However, since I will not be out after dusk most of the time, this is of less importance. What is good, is a 24x optically stabilised zoom lens. Initially I was disappointed with the image quality from my first tests, which I did in automatic mode. Then I switched to a semi-automatic mode as I do on my DLSR and the quality improvement was staggering. Test shots resolved a little of the detail of people on a hilltop 3 miles away. So it looks like I should be able to get safer shots of wildlife than with my last camera, where the black bear in Yellowstone got a little close for comfort.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)