2001 February Trip - The Beginning

First Inklings

A few chance coincidences happened to converge in late December 2000, prompting me to quickly book a rambling trip through Istanbul, Tunisia, Cairo, and the Sultanate of Oman.

The first coincidence was that my father had recently moved to Oman. This gave me a good reason to visit the area, since from North Africa it was only a few hours' flight to Oman. The second coincidence was that I was finishing up my work, and would have time for a vacation soon. The third coincidence is that I hate the holidays, and by late December of every year I'm looking for an escape.

After some hunting, Travelocity gave me the best fares. I booked the trip for February, and bought the Lonely Planet guides for each of the countries. I made a rough itinerary for the trip, and decided on the first hotel in Istanbul.

Preparation

In late January, I started preparing. This time I was going to travel light. I've said that before, but this time I meant it. I wanted to cram everything into a single backpack, including all of my books, and my laptop and digital camera. It became very clear that I had too much stuff. So, of course, I decided to buy a bigger backpack.

Standing in front of the Wall of Backpacks at REI, I had an epiphany: travelling alone was a license to take some chances and make some mistakes. I would risk taking too few clothes and gear, and try to get by with my original backpack. So I went home again, and threw out half of my clothes.

This didn't stop me from buying a load of new gear. First was a high-tech new waterproof jacket from REI. I was hoping its combination of Gore-Tex and vents would keep me warm in Istanbul and cool in Egypt. Since I was going to predominantly Islamic countries, I bought a bunch of long-sleeve shirts that would also be cool in the sun. I picked up some comfortable cross-training shoes to walk in, since I'd be on my feet for a month. And I bought some pants that could be zipped off at the knee to turn them into shorts, at Abercrombie & Fitch ("I'm looking for baggy cotton pants with lots of pockets and zippers--do you sell anything like that?").

In retrospect, I packed pretty well, although I never once used the pockets or the zippers on the pants (except for the one very important zipper, of course). The net result is that my clothes for the trip were mostly zippers and velcro.

Bringing my laptop had one consequence: I took a *lot* of pictures. Since I could just dump my camera's memory to my laptop's hard drive every night (or even several times a day), I could fill up the memory card without worrying. In four weeks I took well over 800 pictures. I'll spare you most of them.

A few days before I left, I booked my hotel in Istanbul. Fortunately, the hotel had a website, so I was able to check the directions, check the phone number, and get a promotional rate. I called the hotel and reserved the room.

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