Well, I spent most of today going through my packing list, shopping for items on my packing list, and packing my pack.  I now have nearly all the items on my list (except my sleep-sheet, which is at Carolyn’s place, and the 1 GB thumb drive that B. is loaning me) packed up in my pack.  I even went through and revamped my first-aid kit, which badly needed it.

The finished pack, including daypack, now weighs 33 lbs.  Not bad – could be lighter, but it could be worse.  I went through most of SE Asia with a 40-lb pack, lo these many years ago.  It would be lighter if I didn’t have to bring a 3-week supply of shampoo, hair conditioner, and sunscreen.  Also if I left out the water filter, which I am (as usual) of two minds about bringing.  On the one hand, I’ve never actually had to use it in any of my travels.  On the other hand, I’d feel really stupid if I got amoebic dysentery because I had to drink unfiltered water.  So what the hell, I bought it, I’m bringing it along.

Some observations on security:

• I believe in redundancy.  While I have yet to lose any of my belongings, get mugged, etc. while traveling, I keep copies of my passport, travelers check receipts, etc. in at least three places – on my person, in my daypack, and in my pack.  That way at least I won’t wind up lost in a foreign country with no ID and no money.
• I also have small amounts of cash cached away in multiple places – same idea.  A $100 bill is easy to stash and hide, but is also plenty of money to get you back to the capital of, say, Ghana.
• The rest of my money, traveler’s checks, ID, etc. goes into a moneybelt that does not leave my waist.  I’m a little nervous this time because, in previous incarnations, I’ve been able to pull money from my checking account using an ATM card, so I haven’t had to carry much cash.  In Ghana, there are very few ATMs, they only take Visa credit cards, and they don’t give you very much cash at a time – so it’s either cash or traveler’s checks.  Traveler’s checks are only redeemable at big moneychangers in the capital, so to get around, you have to carry substantial sums of cash.  All of this makes me moderately nervous.  Probably more than it should.

Despite all this, I’m pretty sure I’ll be safe…Ghana is a stable African country with (reputedly) very friendly people, and lots of people travel there with no problems.  I’m just being paranoid because, well, that’s my nature.  Project managers are masters of contingency planning.  🙂

Meanwhile, I have started swatching for my travel shawl.  I started with size 2 metal needles, which drove me absolutely up the @#* wall.  Between the blunt, slippery ends and the inability to “feel” the stitches as they came off the needle, I was really struggling to do decrease stitches – any decrease stitch.  I finally gave up on those and started again using my trusty size 2 bamboo circulars.  MUCH better.  I’m still challenged and frustrated, because it’s lace knitting (pattern every row instead of every other row), but at least I’m not having to fight the needles as well as the pattern right now.  I’ll probably do some more knitting tonight, and will take the needles with me to Best Buy tomorrow when I take the car in to get the stereo installed.
6 days to Ghana!  And I’m already just about completely packed.  I’m so efficient, I must be a project manager or something.  🙂

Went to the bank today and got traveler’s checks/cash for my trip.  Got home and promptly cached it.  $240 (two 100’s, two 20’s) emergency stash got put into a sealed Ziplock snack bag and duct-taped to the inside of a hidden pocket of my pack, along with a photocopy of my passport and a copy of the receipt for traveler’s checks.  If someone goes rummaging through my pack, they won’t find it; I’ll only lose it if my entire pack disappears.

The balance of it goes into my money belt, in a pair of sealed Ziplock snack bags to keep them from getting wet should I somehow get doused.  The passport gets sealed into a quart-sized Ziplock and put in the money belt as well, along with a copy of my airline itinerary.  Together these things are worth more than gold.

I’m debating stashing a small amount of money in one shoe (I have custom orthopedic inserts that come in and out), but I think that may be overly paranoid. I think I’ll wait and see what I think of the areas I’m visiting.

Tomorrow B. and I are going out to the farmer’s market, where he’s going to show me the finer points of using my camera.  I bought him a digital camera of similar make and model for Christmas, and he’s been shooting and posting at least one good photo a day since then, so he’s learned a lot about this particular type of camera.  Hopefully it will help me take better photos.

I have turned my travel knitting plans upside down, prompted by reading through Heirloom Knitting.  I’ll be knitting a Shetland shawl, from the inside out – starting with the center section and moving out into the borders.  The plan is to start knitting the center of the shawl while I’m in Ghana, and do the more complex border designing once I get back (and presumably have more time/attention to devote to it).  I’ve already selected two patterns, and will probably spend part of tomorrow swatching them out in 2/28 Nm (laceweight, 7000 yards/pound) silk.

But mostly, tomorrow is going to consist of collecting and packing items for my travel pack, and shopping for stuff I don’t yet have.

So, I’m starting to think about a travel project for Ghana.  The kid mohair shawl is out because I’m pretty well convinced it would felt in my pack (although I’m considering bringing it with me anyway to knit on the nearly 24-hour journey to Ghana), plus I would expect to finish it before returning.  I need something that will keep me busy for a long time.

At the moment, I’m leaning towards knitting a fine silk shawl, probably in a 3000 yard-per-pound silk or silk/wool yarn on size 3 needles.  I had thought of buying and bringing an inkle loom, but as small as they are, they just aren’t small enough to fit into a pack and/or knit on a bus or a plane.  About the only two crafts small enough are knitting and crochet, and I like knitting a lot better than crochet.

The challenge is that the project has to be complex enough to be interesting, but not complex to the point where I can’t knit it on a crowded bus full of pigs, chickens, and oh yes, people, bumping over poorly maintained dirt roads.  I have some gorgeous Japanese knitting patterns that are out for that reason.  I’m leaning towards doing another spiral shawl because the patterns are relatively simple and I only need to learn one pattern at a time.  Or I might do a pi shawl, because those are even easier.  But I like the idea of a spiral.

Anyway, I’m going to look at several of my pattern-books to see if I get other inspirations.

Meanwhile, I am starting to plan for my trip to China in the fall.  My mom, her husband, my brother, my sister-in-law, B.,  and I are all going to China on a seventeen-day package tour in September, but we need to send in our deposits now to reserve space.  Plus we need to get Chinese visas, but I will probably do that after I get back from Ghana.  Right now, my passport is not leaving my sight – I need it to get to Ghana!

Mixed feelings about the China tour.  I would much prefer to travel on our own – I dislike group tours, being herded around like cattle – but everyone else seems OK with the group tour, and it’s probably easier than trying to struggle around with eight of us as a group.  I’m REALLY looking forward to going with my mother – it’s the familial visit back to the ancestral homeland for me, and I’ve never been to China before.  So I’m pretty psyched about it.  Two major travels in a year…yay! My wandering feet are happy.

And, on a totally different topic, I discovered yesterday that there’s no way around it, I need a root canal.  I have a filling that’s too close to the nerve and is making chewing tougher foods painful on one side – I’ve sort of been working around it for a few months, hoping it would improve, but I went back to the dentist yesterday and nope, it needs a root canal.  This is a little interesting since I’m leaving for Ghana in exactly three weeks (read: no access to Western medical facilities), but I’m scheduled for the root canal next Thursday and the dentist assures me that, barring unexpected complications, the root canal plus crown should be done by the time I leave for Ghana.  I sure hope so…because I am NOT going to cancel my trip and I’d rather not wind up having to go to a dentist in Ghana.  I have other things to do with my time and let’s just say that my trust in Third World medicine is rather less than in, say, U.S. doctors.