Adventure!

Everyone apart from me has their ISV manual delivered through the post now. I'm starting to wonder where mine is although I'm thinking only the postal service is to blame. Either way it means we know, to a certain extent, what we're doing in the DR.
The colourful manual was written in America and some of the bits have been "translated" into British or re-written to be from this side of the pond's perspective. Some bits have slipped through but that only makes it funny. The manual says that on the volunteering people will be sharing 4 to bed. We thought maybe that's what they do out there but apparently its a typo and 4 people share a room.
Anyway on to the meaty bit. What activities have I bought for my hard earned pennies?

1. Waterfall Rappelling
   
2. Surfing Lessons
3. Snorkelling
   
4. Horseback riding to a secluded waterfall
5. Caving in the "Fun-Fun" caves
6. Guided Tour of Santo Domingo
7. Larimar Workshop (basically its jewelry making)

Sounds a bit wet at first. But we all got the optional activity package too for an extra £100. Apparently 95% of participants take the optional activity package. That means 5% are left at the hotel to entertain themselves.
The optional activities are:

1. White water rafting
2. Canyoning, rappelling, cliff jumping
   
3. Boat excursion to Cayo Levantado
4. Mountain Biking
5. Windsurfing

Thats a bit better 12 activity packed days in 2 weeks. Thats a real adventure tour. 29 Days, 9 Hours, 15 Minutes, 41 Seconds to go.

Universal Packing Checklist

Not that its really the best list for packing light it does remind you of some of the basic things that you may forget. Its good to have a starting point for a packing check-list. You don't want to get out there and immediately be searching for something to shave with, now, do you...

Check it out:

http://upl.codeq.info/

What camera?

I've been thinking of getting a new camera for use in the Dominican Republic. I really want something better than my phone camera, the 3.2 Mpixel k800i, so that I can make another photo book like I did with my photos from my European travels last summer. I was thinking of getting the canon Digital ixus 70 for a while. The orientation sensor was a great feature which would save rotating the photos once I put them on the computer and the smaller screen than the ixus 75 means extended battery life.

Now i've found the Pentax optio w30 which looks like the camera i've been looking for. Designed to be rugged the camera is waterproof to 3 meters for 2 hours. This alone makes it tonnes more suitable for going adventure touring in the DR. There are drawbacks, of course, the optical zoom is only 3x as it has to use a refraction lens because of the waterproof shell. There is no orientation sensor and the camera is around £175. However it is 7 Mpixels and the sample pictures seem ok. There is a coating on the screen to make it visible in bright sunlight and the underwater pictures will be stunning in the clear Carribean sea. I think these things make up for its downfalls and I can always sell it afterwards to get some of the money back. Who doesn't want a waterproof digital camera?

Injections

I went to get injections today. On the phone I was told I would see the nurse and have all the injections done on that day and everything would be fine. Hah. The nurse I saw was a total hypochondriac. As soon as i walked into the room and said where I was going she started to reel off a large list of diseases and conditions that I would be susceptible to if I didn't have the right course of injections. She said that it was probably best to have the emergency vaccines that give immediate protection as I was so close to the deadline for having the other one. Admittedly I should have insisted that I only wanted the one injection and that she should give it to me now anyway but a person reeling off a long list of diseases can be quite bewildering.

So now I'm scheduled to go back 3 times for 4 injections as she recommended hep A, B, and typhoid. I've also been recommended to start taking malaria tablets ASAP just in case I have an allergic reaction to them (quite rare when used for the prevention of malaria)
but oh well. None of my friends had this much fuss made about going there but I guess the injections are free anyway and I don't really want any of those diseases. I will just have to take lots of insect repellent (although it has to have 50% DEET, mind) and a mosquito net impregnated with DEET or some other such rubbish. I'm sure everywhere I stay will have mosquito nets and I'm sure the Dominicans themselves have to use insect repellent so I imagine all the best supplies will be out there although I'm prepared to be enlightened.

39 Days until departure

Flights booked, insurance bought, jabs on wednesday and all paid up to ISV. Now theres only 9 days to go until we find out what we're doing in the DR. Annoyingly they choose to post the packs to my home rather than term time address. I supose its for the best though. All it means is that I will be having its contents read out over the phone or on webcam or something. Until then I had better keep revising for my end of year exams...