Gadget Time

The Solio: Tapping the power of the sun, or a very small part of it.
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Part of preparing for a trip like ours is about stressing out. The other part is the cooling balm that is gadget buying. Thankfully we can justify this by not knowing exactly what we will be encountering. One thing we do know is that it it will be sunny. We've just purchased a gadget called the Solio, which is a solar powered battery charger. It is a light, palm sized device that charges iPods, cell phones etc. It sounds like it might be a little temperamental, direct sun only for 5-8 hours for a full charge, but come on, if you get a chance to remove yourself from the grid, you gotta try. Especially if you are forced off it in the Kenyan bush. Or downtown Nairobi. Or at JFK.

ElekTex Bluetooth fabric keyboard: A keyboard or a napkin. Both?
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In order to provide you with rambling blog entries from the farthest reaches of the earth we are seriously considering the G-Tech fabric keyboard which rolls up to a fraction of a keyboard's size and is washable. Washable! Not that I'm going to be using it as a napkin or anything. All it needs is a couple triple A batteries and a flat area to type on and I can avoid the skeezy internet cafés of the world which I'll be a better person for. Some have asked (my dad) how this might make any difference at all even is such a device exists, which he doubts. One of our coming purchases includes a Blackberry which theoretically will provided us with internet access everywhere that it can get a signal. So, instead of sitting at said skeezy internet café, where the people are friendly and their fingers are friendlier, I can type at my leisure from my hostel room or a big rock in the middle of the outback, watching the sun go down.

In which I describe (potentially) posting to the blog from a big rock.

Some might complain that by bypassing the time-honored tradition of eeking out space at a smoky, overpriced internet café I am eschewing tradition and will be missing out on an essential element of backpacking. But seeing as how this time honored tradition is only about ten years old (though it feels much longer) I think it will be no big loss.

Powered by the sun, sitting on a rock. Soon they'll automate hunting and gathering and we can all get back to what we were supposed to be doing in the first place.