What would you be doing just 5 sleeps from your departure for a crazy, amazing 6 weeks in Africa that includes a week on a mountain?

Well if you are me  – you are doing everything BUT thinking about the fact that it in my mind is basically a blizzard on top of Mount Kilimanjaro right now, Yes I am for real. It is snowing in Africa! Everything above what will be our 4th camp is snow, snow, snow. Check it out if you don’t believe me: Mountain Forecast

The upside is the scree on the summit will be frozen so that will make it better for traction on our 20 hour summit – but if scree can freeze so can we! Good thing for fleece, merino wool and our thick cozy Canadian blood! Mr. Hemingway was not kidding with his Snows of Africa prose. Well played Ernest, well played.

So here is how I am distracting myself from the snow with 5 sleeps to go:

Sorting out the toiletries for Africa tourist time, for Kilimanjaro climbing and our medical kits for the mountain and in general.

Washing our water bladders to make sure they are fresh and clean for Kilimanjaro. We will have a hard enough time finding good drinking water; we don’t need to bring germs from home.

Packing for Kilimanjaro – what fits in this laundry basket can be compressed and fit into my 35L Osprey Backpack of awesome. Carrying that bad boy on the plane so I have what I need for the mountain – just in case my bag is lost!

Preparing the travel file. Making sure we have copies of all our itineraries, e-tickets, flights, confirmations, vouchers, copies of passport, insurance and more. The bible of our trip really.

Over and above all this, about a b-zillion texts back and forth with Lana to find accommodations along the Garden Route, in Cape Town, and in Durban, South Africa. We were successful booking Durban (our rental home has a beautiful deck on the ocean and there are dolphins and whales in the bay every morning, squeeeek excited).

We are so far unsuccessful in booking Garden Route and Cape Town but there are a whopping 4 sleeps left to book this stuff. So I am sure I will not lose any sleep over it …. (said no one in my family ever!)

Brande

PS: Five, 5, Cinc, Pet, Fem, Vijf, Quinque, Cinco, Tano .. sleeps!