My brother, Robbie, phoned me the other day, and I told him about the proposed trip. He is super fit – goes out jogging every day – and seemed quite envious. He told me he had done a couple of very long rally drives, and had a couple of tips to give me as a result of that. I struggle a bit with the comparison, but hey! The tips were:
1. That I should buy cheap knickers and chuck a pair on the fire every night, to avoid having to carry dirty washing home and
2. Take a paper back – not hard back – book to read, and each evening I should tear out the pages I have read and put them on the fire too, to avoid unnecessary weight.
Quite why a few pages and some dirty knickers would be a problem when you were driving a car escapes me, though I can see the relevance up a mountain. However, everyone says you should give what you don’t need to the porters, as the Tanzanian locals have nothing and appreciate whatever you don’t need. But could I bear to give anyone dirty knickers? If I tried to put them in the fire, would I suffer public embarrassment, if someone tried to snatch them off for reuse? And tearing pages out every night might be an idea, but they could be passed to someone else to read the next night and so on. If you were both reading the same book, it would be something to talk about – in fact there could be a whole stream of people a couple of pages behind each other.
I’m with you, how could you possibly burn your books, or hand down your used pants?
How about taking paper knickers and a kindle?
Great (I guess ) for absorbing sweat, and burning at the end of the day?!!! Oh and Rog has a kindle (with charger and some books already loaded)he’s happy to donate.
Ps I guess you will be telling us you are taking up learning Ki-Swahili next!!
I did wonder about paper knickers but they still seem pretty wasteful – and have the problem mum mentioned of sneaking your dirty knickers into the fire! I was thinking a tie-side knicker would be handy – we could change them without removing all the other layers! Not sure anyone makes tie-side knickers in designs appropriate for mountain climbing!!!
The Kindle is a great call. I have a Kindle app on my phone which I read on (as well as a Kindle which Gwen gave me). And you don’t need a separate light then.
Jx
Thank Roger for his very kind offer, please. However I don’t plan to take any modern technology along. And absorbing sweat is a bad thing!! When the temperature dropped, my absorbent damp paper knickers would freeze solid! A whole new experience. Could be a kinky one???!!!
Oh, the charger is for when you are not on the mountain of course!!!
Yip I go for the burning knickers….but…..please pass on your spare pages…cos’ as they say…” The written word is power”!!
Absolutely, Susie. I couldn’t bring myself! Please have a word with my brother!