Turns out that there’s a lot to think about when you’re packing for an international 11-week trip.  Especially if you’re the sort of person who likes to be prepared for every contingency.  And you need to be able to carry it all on your back for a few miles if necessary.

You can see here that we’re certainly prepared for medical contingencies.  (Especially diarrhea — we’ve got lots of stuff for diarrhea.)  I even packed a few pages from an approximately 2-inch-thick printout that the travel nurse gave us listing every possible illness and misfortune that could befall us (including things like corrupt policemen and getting ripped off by taxis, which you would think would be a bit outside the wheelhouse of the travel nurse).

Even though we’re heavily prepared for diarrhea, we’ll still do our best to avoid it.  To that end, we have a few products to treat our drinking water:

(The ad for the LifeStraw shows people bent over with their straws in the churning muddy rivers in the jungle, happily drinking through the straw.  Although Zoe really wants to try that, I think we’ll stick to less dramatic water sources.)

Breaking in our new shoes

I think we’re doing OK on clothing as well.  We included some necessities on our Christmas and birthday lists, so we’re armed with such things as quick-drying pants that convert to shorts, and travel underwear.  And our shoe of choice, Keen hiking sandals.  Since we’ll be carrying our belongings on our backs, bringing a lot of shoes would not be practical.  And after doing some research on the kinds of conditions we’ll be encountering, I’m thinking (hoping) that the Keens will pretty much cover all our bases.  We’ll have some wool socks with us in case we encounter colder weather, and we’ll have some lightweight sandals/flip flops for the beach and casual wear.  If we need something else, we’ll have to buy it down there.  (That’s right, no sneakers, so my illustrious running career may be on hiatus for a few months.)

My clothing for 2.5 months

In case anyone is curious, we each are planning to bring:

• 1-2 pair pants (Bob and I have ones that convert to shorts)
• 1-2 pair shorts or capri pants
• 1 skirt (well, not Bob)
• 4-5 short-sleeve shirts
• 1-2 long-sleeve shirts
• 1 bathing suit
• 1-2 pair wool socks
• 1 lightweight fleece
• 1 raincoat
• 1 pair Keen closed-toe sandals
• 1 pair flip flops (or in my case, lightweight sandals since I HATE that thing between your toes)

(If you happen to see five people driving through 3 feet of snow to Logan Airport in a couple of weeks, wearing sandals over socks and shivering in inadequate jackets, that will be us!)  All items have been chosen to be as lightweight and quick-dry as possible.  Access to washing machines is uncertain, and access to dryers extremely unlikely.

Of course, there are some other extras as well.  We have plenty of art supplies, for example.  (The girls got some great travel ones for Christmas.)  We have journals.  We have compact travel towels (the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have, of course) loaned to us by our wonderful friends, the traveling Brookses.  We have various electronics and books and toiletries and anything else that popped into our heads and was stuck into the “Central America box” that has resided in the corner of our bedroom for the past several months.  And we’re packing an extra suitcase full of school and art supplies to donate to the local school that is supported by La Mariposa.

The blue one is Nadia’s, of course.

These guys will also be accompanying us on the plane. Happily, Lanie was motivated to donate several stuffed animals — win/win!