Are you f*cking kidding me!?

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to a drug called Malarone.

Malarone (from Wikipedia): "The drug combination atovaquone/proguanil (INNs, trade names Malarone, Malanil) is an antimalarial medication used in both the treatment and prevention of malaria, commercially available from GlaxoSmithKline since 2000."

 

Why am I on about drugs? Because I just had a heart attack. You need one of these per adult per day  to prevent you from contracting Malaria. Which is all nice and well, and I really really don't want to get Malaria - we need 4 boxes for the two of us - but the "problem" is the price.

You see, a box of this costs 63$. SIXTY-THREE US Dollars.

And the amount on the photo is enough for 12 days. So, to be guaranteed malaria-free, you'd need (approximately) two and a half of these per month.

To put things into perspective, a gram of the active ingredients in the pill costs 15 USD.

To put THAT into perspective, a gram of investment-grade gold at todays spot price costs 53 USD. A gram of 999 silver is 0.96 USD.

Dear Glaxo-Smith-Kline, are you fucking kidding me? I am all for "free market" etc., but this - this is insane. Okay, yes, it's the "good" anti-Malaria drug, but hey, the other one makes most people hallucinate, so this is what you really want. Now, tell me, how is the average person in Africa supposed to afford this?!

Not cool Pharma. Not cool. And remember people, this is the GOOD stuff... "Among adults who received MALARONE for treatment of malaria, attributable adverse experiences that occurred in ≥5% of patients were abdominal pain (17%), nausea (12%), vomiting (12%), headache (10%), diarrhea (8%), asthenia (8%), anorexia (5%), and dizziness (5%)." 

The "bad" stuff will... well... Mefloquine... "Neuropsychiatric effects are reported with mefloquine use.^[1] The FDA product guide states it can cause mental health problems, including anxiety, hallucinations, depression, unusual behavior, and suicidal ideations, among others.^[8] Some have reported severe central nervous system events requiring hospitalization in about one in 10,000 people taking mefloquine for malaria prevention, with milder events (e.g., dizziness, headache, insomnia, and vivid dreams) in up to 25%.^[10] When some measure of subjective severity is applied to the rating of adverse events, about 11-17% of travelers are incapacitated to some degree.^[3]"

Damn!

The tent might be a touch larger than expected.

Addendum after having folded it back together: Dear Bamako participant, please do not do the mistake we made, and go buy or borrow a 2-person tent. Do NOT borrow or buy a 4-person tent. I now know what God feels like when trying to compress matter into a black hole, and have gained a basic understanding of n-space folding, quantum mechanics and Dr. Who's Tardis.

Learning for today: I do not want to be God. I do not have his patience.

Kit, part 2: The Bug-out Bag

Wikipedia: A bug-out bag^[1][2] is a portable kit that contains the items one would require to survive for seventy-two hours^[3][4] when evacuating from a disaster. The focus is on evacuation, rather than long-term survival.

So, here's our current take on it... We each have one, with the exact same core contents - and packed exactly the same, so you just grab one, and go...

There are still bits that are yet to come, like MRE's (arriving 23rd Jan ;) - and if you ever need them - adventuremenu.cz), copies of passports and visas, and scans of all documentation on a mini-DVD, etc... and there are items which I won't be showing here for... well... various reasons ;)

Let's go clockwise:

Center: 
The bag itself. On it, two packages of tissues.

Right:
Anti-bacterial wipes and gel.
Multi tool, large, with knife.
LED Flashlight
Compass
Fire Starter
CS gas
Spice mix (this is my individual addition, I can't run away without salt, pepper, paprika and curry!)
Saw

Center bottom:
Binoculars
Knife/Fork/Spoon
First aid kit for anything up to a medium-sized wound, basic pills (aspirin, "real" painkillers, water purification, stomach pains, antibiotics, diarrhea..., with 2 condoms for emergency water storage (thank you US Army for that hint)
Head-mounted light with 3 modes (dim, full brightness, red)
Plastic binders

Center top:
6 cereal bars
Small PMR radio (3-5km range), with built-in flashlight
Dextrose tablets
1 red, 1 white Chem-light
Nasal spray and eye drops (remember, we're going to the desert..)

Left:
High-visibility band
Small multi-tool
Hand-powered flashlight
A compass/whistle/thermometer/magnifying glass combo
Tape

Just so we're clear: this is the bear, sorry, bare necessities - ideally, one would also grab a satphone, the UHF/VHF radio and a few other.... choice items :)

In case you're feeling like reading up on this, here's a good link to start with:
US Military Survival Manual (.pdf)
And the link to the 1992 version, which I personally find better.

Kit review, pt1.

Folks,

some of you have mentioned that you'd like to see what we're taking along on the trip - and I'm happy to oblige. I'll do this in a few installments - today, we'll cover technology and 1st aid.
Just FYI - the black boxes are all the same size. I heard many stories about how they all eventually end up broken due to the stress of jumping up and down while driving on African tracks, so I engaged the old gray matter to think about what needs to be protected when being transported - and came up with these... They are, in fact ammo boxes for hunters from the local sporting goods store. :)

Box 1) Instant camera (Fuji Finepix) with 70 shots - apparently, these are a very easy way to give a "petit cadeaux" (small gift) to children. Assorted AA, AAA and 9V batteries, power plug adapters and a spare Samsung "idiot-proof" digital camera.

Box 2) The land-mobile pharmacy, covering everything from toothache (an industrial packaging of Ibuprofen) to "Africa-belly", serious pain, vitamins, antibiotic, antihistamines, stomach ache, water purification tablets, blood thinners/coagulants, etc.

Box 3) A platoon-sized first aid kit. We can do everything from scrapes and bruises, to minor field-expedient surgery and stiches.

Box 4) Video and Photo - a Sony digital camera (records straight onto DVD-RW's), and our trusty Nikon photo camera.

Box 5) Satellite navigation and comms: A Garmin Nuvi 765 for on-road navigation, with maps of Europe and what road maps there are of Africa, and a Garmin GPSMAP 276C with the Topographic maps of the parts of Africa we're going to (made by the Bamako team).
Then, two Sat Phones: The big, ugly Qualcomm Globalstar sat-phone (cockroaches will be using this thing to communicate after the apocalypse), but it's a phone only... Works almost anywhere, EXCEPT in the bottom part of Africa - go figure. The good side of it is that it only needs a view of the sky to function (and a satellite over head).
The second one is a Thuraya SO2510 - a nice, small unit, which has the great advantage of being able to send/receive normal SMS messages, as well as send short e-mails. It's also much cheaper (0.5 EUR/minute or SMS) to use than the Globalstar unit - but the drawback is that it needs to have a clear view of the southern sky, as it's only got one satellite in equatorial orbit. This will of course be les of a problem the further south we go.

Probably the most important bit of this box is the small orange device at the top-end of the picture - the SPOT Satellite messenger. This little darling sends location information every 20 minutes to a webpage (which is what you can use to track us - link is above to the right), and can send OK/HELP/911 messages. So if we're in trouble, you'll know, because it also posts status updates onto this blog. I can not overstress the peace of mind this thing buys you.

There are going to be two more boxes - but they're not ready yet. One will be the "computer" box - we're taking a small Netbook with us to be able to store pictures and movies onto a hard disk, and if we get any WiFi, use the internet to update the blog a bit, and a few other things... And the "random communications" box, with the VHF radio and other assorted supplies. You will see them when I finish them.

 The "normal" 1st aid kit, courtesy of IKEA and beefed up with suggestions from the US Marines.

Two high-power PMR radios (still reasonably short-range, I don't think we'll get more than 2km on average out of them) for keeping in touch if someone needs to leave the car...

Most boxes and bags also have a small way of generating light - either by a Chemlight, or a small LED light. :) Because who wants to look for a battery when he needs one of these! :

That's it for now! Next installment - bug out bags and car! :)

SPOT works ;)

Aha! As you can see below, the tracker works ;) We'll try not to spam the blog with updates though - once per day should be enough!

Check-in/OK message from 3ezer SPOT Personal Tracker

3ezer
Latitude:47.50310
Longitude:19.07456
GPS location Date/Time:01/02/2013 13:09:17 CET

Message:Checking in - all good!

Click the link below to see where I am located.
http://fms.ws/An9wP/47.50310N/19.07456E

If the above link does not work, try this link:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=47.50310,19.07456&ll=47.50310,19.07456&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

3ezer

You have received this message because 3ezer has added you to their SPOT contact list.

Every day is an Adventure. Share Yours.
http://www.findmespot.com

Budapest-Bamako 2012

Dear all, for your viewing enjoyment  - the Travel Channel documentary of the 2012 Budapest-Bamako... Keep an eye out for the Green Land Cruiser with the number 25 - that's our guys ;)