T-11 days until we depart. Everything is paid for; supplies bought; flights booked; photography gear selected; immunizations and medications prescribed; we're ready. We have our Yellow Fever appointments tomorrow, and will get our Visa's in Dar es Salaam when we land. I am funny about surrendering my passport, so we chose to do it upon arrival rather than sending them in to the Tanzanian embassy in DC.
Lots has happened since last time, obviously. Most notably is that Angela's mother has decided to come along. We asked her if she wanted to come last spring and she jumped at the opportunity. She'll fly to our place next week, and then we'll all go together to New York to catch the big jet to take us to Dubai.
Unfortunately, I've come to the realization that I gave Dubai short shrift in the planning. It started out as kind of a bonus because of the ticket prices, but the more we researched the more we realized that one full day just wasn't enough. Sadly there wasn't really any way we could extend our trip since we have to be in Arusha, TZ, on the 23rd with no exceptions. We've booked a "desert safari" through Arabian Adventures for the morning and we have tickets to the observation deck of the Burj Khalifa. That doesn't leave too much time to experience the souks and all that, but we'll make due. I'm not even sure we'll have time to see the Burj al Arab, but what're you gonna do? Angela is excited about the henna, the pashmina's, all the girly stuff. It's going to be a very busy day.
On the photography front, I purchased an F-Stop Loka to hold my gear plus day-pack and carry-on type items. It's super rugged and should stand me in good stead for basically ever. My "kit" is going to consist of my 7D, EF-S 10-22mm wide angle, 24-105 F/4L, and a rented 100-400 mkII F/4.5-5.6L. I would like a little more reach, since I don't think you can have too much reach for wildlife photography, but weight and money conspired to keep me down. The 500F/4L would have been amazing, or the 300F/2.8+1.4TC, but either of those would have been almost $1000 for 3 weeks. I'm not that good of a photographer. I am taking my tripod, though, so I can try to get some good star and landscape pictures from our camps. To that end, I picked up an intervalometer to help with the exposures.
I can't believe a trip that's been in the works for over a year is about to happen. It'll be over so fast and all that will be left are the memories (and the pictures, and the pashminas, and maybe the rugs and the african masks and whatever else).
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