Departure Day minus 1 – Time to pack my bags

The difficulty I face in packing my suitcase is choosing appropriate clothing.

Quito’s expected high temperature is around 65° F and its low around 50° F. Sadly, as of this moment, the probability of rain is 100%.

In Coca in the Amazon basin, the expected high is 95° F with a low of 80° F.  At this point the forecast calls for rain on some days but not others.Otavalo’s forecast calls for highs of 60° F, lows of 40° F, with a mixed forecast for rain.

Guayaquil and the Galápagos Islands look like mid-80’s for the high, mid-40’s for the low in Guayaquil, mid-70s for the low in the Galápagos Islands.  Riobamba and Cuenca fall within the extremes of Coca and Otavalo.

So … hot, cool, wet, dry.  Methinks this calls for layers, layers, layers, a water-resistant jacket and a bathing suit for swimming in a “black water lake home to many species of fish and animals” (Road Scholar information booklet).  Yikes!  Not sure I’m up to multi-species bathing in black water (one might even say it sounds slightly lewd, ha ha), but snorkeling off the beach of San Cristobal Island sounds idyllic.

Of course, of almost more importance than my clothing is my technology. Last August at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, my sister Shirley and I went to a riveting performance of “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” a monologue about the nasty working conditions in the Apple factory in China. Early in the show the actor says:

I love technology, I love everything about it.  I love looking at technology, … I love browsing technology, I love buying technology, I love opening technology—even when it’s in that bubble packaging—I love it.  I love the smell of a new piece of technology—that sort of burnt PVC smell when you run electricity through it the first time?—I love that.  **

I felt as one with the playwright!

I will take my iPhone of course and in spite of what I learned at “The Agony and the Ecstasy.”  (Shame on me, but my iPhone makes a great alarm clock and acts – yes – as a telephone.  I need to be available for calls from or about my elderly mother.)  I will also take a small computer to use for email and these fascinating blog entries I write.  🙂

And to take the thousand photographs my insightful daughter Gillian referenced in her comment on the previous post, I will use my 35 mm digital Nikon D7100 SLR with two lenses – 18-140 mm and 70-300 mm – complete with polarizer.  I’ll also take a small digital point-and-shoot that is great for taking short videos.  Concerned about the effect of Amazonian humidity on my Nikon, I visited a camera store to enquire about its care.  The clerk advised me to keep lots of air circulating around the camera and gave me a couple of handfuls of silica gel to keep in my camera bag.  If the silica gel starts to feel heavy, the clerk informed me, I am to zap it for several seconds. I draw the line, however, at packing a microwave oven.

There is a luggage weight limit of 44 pounds for our internal flights between Quito and Coca and between Guayaquil and the Galápagos Islands.  I have no idea how heavy 44 pounds feels; I will put my bathroom scale to work in this regard.  Fortunately, if our luggage is overweight, there are secure places to store excess belongings until the return flight.  Thus I am also taking a light-weight nylon duffel bag to hold the excess if necessary, and to carry souvenirs and gifts on the trip home.  In Viet Nam I had to visit the suitcase market to purchase a second bag for just such a purpose.  Now I will be properly prepared!

Bye for now.  Hablar con usted pronto!
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** There is no copyright on this monologue as the authors want people to learn about the horrors of Foxconn where Apple products are made.  You can download it for free at http://mikedaisey.com/Mike_Daisey_TATESJ_transcript_2.0.pdf.