Preparations for Jungle – ‘Hazardous Environment Training’ and big needles

Having been born and living most of my formative years in Africa I know that it’s the noise that greats you in the Jungle far before the sights and smells assail your senses. Lying in bed this morning listening to the garbage truck I new that soon I could swap the banging of trash cans for the constant hum of insects.

We have received confirmation from our Brazilian partners of the dates for the first expedition, the 16-29th of April. Suddenly the adventure is real and preparation are starting in earnest. The initial leg will be up river from Manaus, where the Rio Negro meets the Rio Solimoes to create the Rio Amazonas. These names taste of excitement – unfortunately they also appear on the Centre of Disease Control (CDC) health information map as requiring Yellow fever, Hepatitis A/B, Typhoid, Malaria and Rabies. So its was time to find a local travel clinic and face the needle. The more challenging aspect for me was finding my old records – who wants to have another jab if you can avoid it. Funny how these things are always is a ‘safe’ place until you come to look for them.

We are lucky in Cardiff as we have a Nomad Travel Clinic in the Cotswold Outdoor shop in the center of Cardiff, this meant that within days of receiving our travel dates we could get our immunizations sorted. It is something worth noting that if you intend to travel to places that needs the extent of immunization we need you need a minimum of a month before travelling so you can receive the relevant boosters and preferably longer with some immunizations. The nurse was incredibly systematic taking every detail of or previous histories and where we were going. But at the end there was no avoiding it – both arms were needed !!

Yes, I have always been a baby when it comes to those ‘big needles’.

Later I will tell you how we got on at our Hazardous Environment Training course.