I need a medic!! And an anamnesis for the adventure.

Anamnesis: O'car Campos, 26 years old, Born in 1987. Healthy, doesn't take medications. Travels from January 2014 by bicycle the whole South American continent, through the jungle, alone.

I got that Anamnesis from the Physician I visited.

I had been thinking about this post for a week or so but I didn't make the time to post it, finally I made the time to do so.

Two weeks ago I called the vaccination center to get information about the prices of vaccines that I will need and are mandatory in some countries that have jungle.

Countries such as Brazil, the Guyana jungles, and pretty much all the hearth of South America are supposed to request for a certificate proving you got the yellow fever vaccine. The vaccine prices aree high and I had to pay a visit to the physician before getting any vaccine because they need a prescription in order to vaccinate you.

After some talking with the medic I got several instructions on what to get/drink/eat/think if I get sick after eating something bad or if I get bitten by some poisonous snake and some salts in case I need to empty my bowels too often. I also got instructions on mosquito repellents but I doubt the effect will last long with that amount of  mosquitoes around, probably not much and I will end up chewing tobbaco and putting the saliva with tobaco in my face.

After getting a prescription for the malaria and several maps telling me where malaria is I got the list of vaccines to get:

• Vavilrix: 2 doses only If I hadn't got pox.
• Twinrix, 3 doses, this is for the hapatitis A and B for life
• Typhimvi, for the tifus
• Yellow Fever
• Verorab, 3 doses, for the rabies
• Menactra, for meningitis
• Adacel (dtp), for tetanus, Diphteria and pertussis

So I decided to get immediately shot against Yellow Fever, first of hepatitis series, Meningitis and the tetanus one. I headed to pay for the vaccines and back again with the bill to get the shots to my arms.

Four vaccines early on Friday morning to start properly the weekend and good bye till next month. I need to continue with the hepatitis series and start with the rabies. And I'm still missing the tifus ones. I will become strong against mother nature trying to get rid of me. Or at least I will try to, testing human biotechnology.

Water Purification - Microorgranisms

I don't believe that the water purifying systems can properly filter every kind of microorganisms. Knowing a bit about microorganism, parasites, bacteria and viruses I know life tries to find its way somehow and if I have to get water from some hideous source in the jungle some small virus (25–300 nanometres) may slip through the filter.

Small Virus

It may not be lethal or it may be lethal to get one of this "living" creatures in the organism, but anyways I don't want to get one while on tour which wouldn't allow me to continue pushing pedals.

Therefore I got the steripen, which uses UV light to kill any living creature in the water by damaging the core of life, DNA.

The steripen should be enough to kill any living creature dwelling water. The UV lamp should lasts for 8000 uses which is 8000 litres of water. In the worst case from part I the 2000 litres filter should last for a year, so the steripen should last 4 years. Again, I won't use the filter systems everyday because water will be available from fresh and clean sources most of the time so one of this should be enough for the journey.

The steripen I got can be recharged via mini USB, so the dynamo hub plays a nice role here recharging the electronics.

As the MSR Miniworks I got the steripen at REI store in the states and a co-worker (thanks Carito) brought it back to Chile.

More theory, and I'm longing for some days to go in  the mountains and test some of the equipment.

For more info about the steripen visit their web site: http://www.steripen.com/ultra/

Water Purification - Chemicals!!

I think at some stage I'll have to get water from anywhere. Including a river or a lake. In some areas it's going to be polluted probably but I'll have to drink it anyways. So I searched for some portable water purification systems that claim to effectively removes bacteria, protozoa and some other chemicals like pesticides.

The MSR Miniworks.

Discussing with Kevin one day he told me how polluted some channels and rives of some areas of Buenos Aires are, mainly because of the Bovine industry.

There were plenty of options actually, from very expensive systems used by professionals like army people till some cheaper but not lasting ones.

In the middle range there was the MSR MiniWorks EX Water Filter.


Almost every review on other blogs claimed that the system works as it says. Not big, acceptable fast and field maintainable. Being easy to clean anywhere it is an option that lasts for several years of use.

The filter of this pumping purifier should last me for 2000 litres.

I have set a time for being in every country, I estimate that it will take me around 2 years to do the round. If that is the case I think I may drink around 5 litres per day. So in a year I should drink around 1825 litres. For the 2 years I would need a spare filter.

There will be plenty of times I will be able to get water from fresh sources, like south Chile, and in the mountains of some countries. Also gas stations and people will be provide water.

So the MSR with a spare filter is enough for the journey.

Too much theory, I need more action.