Preparing for the trip

If the travel literature is to be believed, then the combination India/Nepal/Bhutan contains a number of very serious threats to one's health. Not only does one have to get a health insurance with provisos for airlift out, but one needs to carry a full medicine chest, and have various kinds of inoculations. I am not very keen on needles, but last year - since I went to Africa - had updated my tetanus shots along with Hepetitis A and B. Now I wondered what more I could need? My friend Karen mentioned a travel clinic, CIVES - Centro de Informação em Saúde para Viajantes, at the federal university (UFRJ). Using their web-site I asked for an appointment and was promptly attended. A week later I stood in their office with two young doctors, who had prepared for my visit with printed medical charts of the three countries I would visit. They interviewed me carefully, discussed my itinerary in detail and settled on suggestions for typhoid fever vaccination and a polio booster shot, along with medicine for height sickness, re-hydration powders, in case of Traveler's Diarrea,  and powerful insect spray. A wish to prescribe rabies shots hung in the air, but I shrugged it off. I will stay clear of all dogs and even cows (yaks?)  who transmit rabies in their slime. My theory is that I will be so covered in clothes in the cold Bhutan climate that it will be hard to find an entry point! In typical friendly Brazilian fashion the CIVES doctors located the otherwise unavailable polio vaccine at Fiocruz and got me in today - all of this free of charge and very competently done. Fiocruz was another surprise, a spacy leafy oasis off crazy Av. Brasil, where another public travel clinic - Centro de Viajantes no Hospital Dia do IPEC - offers a similar service and administers vaccines, including Yellow Fever.

Meanwhile the stack of stuff to take grows on a table in my guest room - the sub zero sleeping bag, the liner, the socks, the winter clothes, the boots, the energy bars, the meds, the water purifying tablets, etc. etc.  - soon to be joined by the trek poles (for my ailing knees) and the insulating sleeping pad, also suggested by the doctors. My friend Amanda will bring them down from Florida this weekend. WHAT WOULD I BE WITHOUT MY FRIENDS? 

In a week I will be sitting on an Air France flight headed for Paris, then New Delhi, where 22 hours later, Raj, the driver, will be waiting to take me to the beautiful Imperial Hotel. 

Who's a lucky girl?

How it came to pass

You're going where? Bhutan? Where is that? I actually had to look myself. I knew it lay in the foothills of the Himalayas, but its relation to neighboring countries was not so clear. Now I know it lies north of India, east of Nepal and south of China and Tibet. 

Next question is: Why? I guess the easiest answer is to say I am following a dream. For a long time now I have wanted to fill my eyes with the sight of the tallest mountains - not sure why - and in my mind that dream is linked with Bhutan.

My chance to fulfill my dream came when long-time Danish friends, Jytte and Ole, who live in Vancouver and spend the toughest winter months in Rio, told me of their upcoming trip to Bhutan. Before they knew what had happened I had made plans to join them. 

We meet in New Delhi very late on March 31, spend 2 days and 3 nights trying to see as much as we can (not to mention shopping) in that area. We will have a driver, Raj, who drove Veronica and her family around 2 years ago. On April 3 we fly to Kathmandu and the Shangri-La Hotel for one night, where our tour begins. Then, on April 4, on to Paro (only airport in Bhutan) - on this part we will actually fly past Mount Everest, so we pray they have seated us on the left side of the plane.

We will spend 10 days in Bhutan, 3 of which will be trekking and camping in the hills near Paro. We are concerned with recent weather reports showing nighttime temperatures of -8C! I wonder whether my newly purchased Summit Mummy sleeping bag will measure up. I will be outfitted with a mixture of warm clothes, some my own, many belonging to the generous Bruno Stern, and a whole lot of accessories sent down by Chris Levin. I will have a headlamp so I can blog and read in my single tent. I also have a whistle - in case a stray yak bursts into my tent! I may, though, follow the advice of a guy who had done a similar trip. It was this: ear-plug in place, stocking-cap covering most of your head, deeply zippered into your sleeping bag, you take a sleeping pill and hope for the best!

Tomorrow I go to the travel clinic at the federal university. I hope they don't insist on rabies shots.