Category — Gear

After two intense days of storing, organizing, sorting, packing and unpacking the bags finally we’ve finished to pack our bags. Here is what we have:

My bags :

Board bag:

• 2 surf boards 6′.3″ and 6′.8″
• 1 neoprene top
• 3 sets of fins
• 1 wetsuit 3:2
• 2 pairs of flippers for diving
• Snorkel and mask
• Extra towel

Big backpack (50 L )

• 3 T-shirts
• 2 Jeans pants
• 1 Sintetic pants/shorts
• 2 Walking shorts
• 3 Boardshots
• 1 Shirt
• socks, undies  etc
• 1 Merino light jersey , 1 thick sintetic jersey and a thin goretex jacket
• Sleeping bag
• Sporks, compass, walkie talkies, mini water boiler, swiss knife, plug adaptors in a waterproof bag
• Mini foldable bag
• 1Towel
• Case with bathroom things, sunsreen, shaver, repelent, tooth brush and paste, shampoo, soap
• Case with medicine and first aid things
• 1 Light pair of shoes
• 1 Sandals
• Pacsafe e and locks to the bag
• 3 Hats

Small backpack

• Camera SLR Canon
• Mini Laptop
• 2 books (Brave new world e Lonely planet Indonesia)
• Tickets
• Passport, credit card and documents
• ipod
• headphones, cables and chargers

Cris’ Bags

Big Bag (40L)

• 1 Small pair of shoes (all star)
• 1 Pair of sandals
• 2 Beach towels (cotton cloth)
• 1 Mini-skirt
• 1 Skirt knee high
  
• 2 Shorts
• 4 Tops
• 2 Dresses (1 short , 1 knee high)
• 3 Bikinis
• 3 Pants (1 jeans e 2 cotton )
• 2 Woollen jerseys (1 merino)
• 1 Small case (with nail and hair stuff)
• 1 Electrical Shaver
• 5 Panties, 2 bras, 5 pairs of socks
• 1 Swiss army knife
• 1 Microfibre towel
• 1 Sleeping bag
• 1 Hat

Small backpack

• 1 Pair of jandals
• 1 Goretex jacket
• 1 Small digital camera
• Documents, passport, credit cards
• 2 books (Lonely planet India and The Rum Diary, by Hunter S.Thompson - a gift from Cam)
• Mini towel
• Contact lenses, glasses and sunglasses
• Ipod e headphones

When everything was ready, Cris was walking around the bedroom to feel how heavy is the backpack. The room is now empty, everything is in boxes, and from now on we will live with these things in our backpacks.

When I finished working last Friday, I thought this last week in New Zealand would be very relaxing, after all we had almost everything very well organized, we had only a few last details to sort out, little things yet to buy, pack the bags and leave.

Clearly, the practice is quite different from the theory, opposite, in this case! This week has been the busiest week ever… we have done so many things everyday that I’m already tired when I wake up.

I’ve been washing all our clothes, the ones we are taking with us and those that will be stored here also, a few every day, I mean, a lot every day. Now I still have a pile of clothes to be ironed waiting for me.

For two days we were walking in the centre, looking for things that we still had to buy, and when I say two days walking, I really mean two days walking, non-stop, up and down.. and at the end of each day we thought “it’s good to get used to this, we’ll have several days like this in the coming months.” Oh my little legs!

Some things we bought:
- A day pack, that was a birthday present from Felipe to me, and another little foldable nylon backpack which turns into nothing;
- Rain covers for the backpacks (we decided not to buy any new large backpack, we will use our old ones that are still ok);
- Plug adaptors.. why each country must have a different type of socket?;
- In the pharmacy: pain killer, imodium (very important!), hydrogen peroxide, band-aid and repellent;
- Little calculator, we found one that is peferct for converting currencies, it’s nice;
- We followed another tip from Juliano to buy something to boil water, we found a “water boiler” that’s quite common in Brazil but is the first time I see here, was not very cheap ($40) but is much smaller than a jug.

[Read more →]

Now that the torture with the passport is over, I can tell you about the new gadgets we bought last week. This is the result of a rainy weekend… shopping! It was the most expensive weekend of the year… but these things were already planned in the budget and it was good to do it all at once - and it is super fun to have new toys.

Mini-Laptop Asus Eee 900

After discussing whether or not carry a laptop, we ended up opting for yes. We know it is expensive and fragile, might happen to be stolen, break, damage and can also be another concern. But the pros were  more than the cons: a laptop can be very useful to look for a ticket, accommodation, to keep in touch with people we’ll visit, download and upload photos, update the site… but we really decided when we found this Asus Eee, which is much cheaper than the big ones (we paid US$ 570) and easier to care for and carry. It is ridiculously small and light, compared to our other 15″, but large enough to use the keyboard and access the Internet with a 1024×600 resolution screen. It also comes with a protective cover.. perfect for travelling! It has also proved to be very resistant.. on the first night I dropped it on the floor from 1m height (ooops, sorry Felipe!),  it jumped up and down and survived without any scratch!

Walkie-Talkie Radios - Uniden

I’ve always wanted to have a walkie-talkie when I was a child.. now that I have one nobody wants to play with me hiding behind the sofa. heheh
This was another tip from Juliano, and if he hadn’t said anything, we would never think of this hypothesis.
It is much cheaper than taking a cell phone (option that haven’t even been contemplated) and can help us when we get lost from each other. This one is a Uniden, they were the smallest and cheapest we found (US$ 60), there are 2 in the box and uses 3 AAA batteries.

Sigma 18-200 Lenses

Although we are far from being professionals, photography is one of our favorite hobbies, Felipe’s and mine, since the design uni time. We’ve already got a SLR camera and two lenses (a 18-55 and another 70-300), but in such a trip, carrying so many things and changing lenses all the time might not be something practical. As we love taking photos and this purchase wouldn’t be exclusively for the trip, we decided to invest a little more (US$ 660.00 - ouch!) and buy a Sigma 18-200 with Optical Stabilizer. It is bigger and heavier, but is everything is in one and much better quality than the others we had here, which will be retired by the way - does anyone want to buy?

Furthermore we will also take:

[Read more →]

We’ll try to put here in the blog everything we are taking, what we think might be useful in the journey, how we are preparing, etc.. If anyone has any tips, please send us a comment!

Yesterday we did some shopping (by the way, shopping now, only for the trip!). See what we bought:

1. Elastic clothes line. It comes with the clips! I found this super useful, not only for travelling, but also get to use at home.
Brand: Kiwi Camping
Price: NZD 6.99 / US$ 5.30

[Read more →]