Brazil - 39 days to go. Preparations continue.

39 days to go - how time flies. Things are progressing well as I prepare to fly out on the 11th of June. It's a logistical challenge for sure - I've got 8 flights booked so far and that only includes the group stage of the competition. At the moment it's London > Rio > Manaus > Rio > Sao Paulo > Rio > Belo Horizonte > Rio > London.Flight booking has been a bit tricky but not too bad overall. I've used The Flight Centre to handle the myriad of options for me. Prices have been going up so the internal Rio > SP and Rio > Belo flights are in the £250-£350 range which is quite a lot compared to the £50 Easyjet stuff we've been used to here in the UK. And the flights are only 275 miles so you're barely up before you have to go down again.Accommodation is all booked as well. I have a great base in Rio, where I've got an ensuite room in an apartment in Urca just near the England training base and the famous Copacabana beach. Hotels in the other cities have been getting more and more expensive so I'm pleased that I've got them all sorted out. FIFA have arrangements with a number of hotels in each of the host cities and I've booked one of them in Sao Paulo because I'm particularly keen on using the FIFA media shuttle to avoid what is apparently a pretty crime-ridden trip across town.In Belo and Manaus I've managed to avoid the hotels that charge by the hour and find a couple of nice(ish) ones that should suit. I'm quite close to the stadium in Manaus but a bit of a trek away from the stadium in Belo (but near a load of bars!). Booking.com and Tripadvisor have been my friend throughout this rather complex ordeal.In the unusual and possibly unlikely situation that England win their group, there will be another flight to Recife 1500 miles away for their first knockout match, and another hotel booking needed. I'm kind of hoping that they don't!However, possibly more likely, if they finish second then their next match is in Rio which will be superb as I'm basing myself there. It will be an amazing game in the Maracana if it takes place. Even more likely is that they'll be out and on the plane, which will mean some airport coverage and then shooting any Rio or Sao Paulo games up to and hopefully including the final.FIFA opened their match accreditation system a few weeks ago, so I've been able to directly apply for the matches I want to attend. As well as the England games I've also got a Belgium v Russia game in Rio slotted in just before I head out to Belo for England's Costa Rica match. At the moment I can only book games in the group stages. The knockout stages are opened up for applications once the teams that are playing are known. The FIFA system is pretty good - you can track your application status and also see how many slots are taken which is handy to see how busy it's going to be. The England v Uruguay match is currently the busiest of the 4 I've got booked so far which is understandable seeing as it's a South American country.As you can see from the photograph above, a selfie in fact, I've been getting my body prepared for the rigours of the trip. This particular example was a yellow fever injection which in itself was a fairly innocuous affair. The side effects warning stated that I may get an adverse reaction between 4 and 10 days later. After 5 days I was pretty sure I was going to die, with nausea, headaches and fever. Bleurgh! Thankfully it passed after two days but it was pretty unpleasant - thankfully I won't get yellow fever in the jungle of Manaus.I've also had my Hepititus jabs updated, and picked up some anti malaria tablets which, at £3 a pop are quite pricey. Hopefully that's me covered from a tropical diseases standpoint, but I remain a bit concerned about the dreaded botfly (cue particularly disgusting botfly removal video).I haven't yet worked out exactly what gear to take and how to pack it all. I have a very heavy 400mm 2.8 lens which I'd ideally take in the cabin with me, but with the limits I'm going to have I think I'll only be able to get my main cameras in hand luggage. Theft of my gear is a big worry. Wandering about with £20,000 of camera gear is similar to having a large "mug me now" target hovering over my head so I've buddied up with another English photographer and hopefully we'll be able to do quite a bit of travel together, presenting a larger but more intimidating (?!) target. Possibly we can scatter in different directions if attacked, using confusion tactics to throw off the perps. Seriously though, everyone I speak to seems to know someone who has been help up in Rio so it is a worry.For non-match documentary photography therefore I'll be taking some small inconspicuous but high quality cameras with me, probably my A7R and RX100. I'm also planning on having a "throw phone" or two which are old handsets I can give up if I get into trouble, and a "throw wallet" or two as well.Lastly, I've now updated my automatic file copying utility and am able to insert a memory card into my laptop and have the locked images ingested straight into Lightroom and, at the same time, FTP them immediately back to the Focus Images picture desk for remote captioning and editing. This is great as it means I'll be able to focus on the game and not worry about having to caption & edit mid game and therefore miss important moments. I really hope that the promised pitchside LAN and wifi in the Brazil stadiums works as advertised!