we're trekking pals habiba and alex and for the last few weeks we have been
calling alaska home working from our little tiny airbnb
during the week and hitting the hiking trails during the
weekends exploring the last frontier challenging ourselves learning and
appreciating the opportunity to escape the heat of the desert
but getting here was an adventure of its own
the state of alaska requires all people entering alaska from another state or
country to a complete a traveler declaration
form and b arrive with proof of a qualifying
negative covid19 test so we took our first cov test in arizona
and this is how it went we are right outside of the doctor's
office here waiting for our telly visit to start so
that they can you know we talk to a doctor and they will basically send
someone out to get the swabs yeah so we're getting just for coffee uh
so i'll get that ordered for you and i'll have
my mma come out and smart both of you it's going to be a nasal swab
um the lab has been a little bit backed up recently as you can imagine so
we will get those results here as soon as we're able to as soon as we get those
back we'll be reaching out to you to let is there an expected timeline the
alaska wanted us to have these done within 72 hours of arrival
okay you've probably seen videos this one doesn't go super far back this one's
just the inside of your nostrils right so we're actually using it's a
little bit thicker but like i said it doesn't go super far back the smaller
one is the one that goes really really okay but this one's just the inside of
your legs so i'm gonna use your extra hand for me if you can just hold that
for me try not to spill it
we're just gonna go in your nose and we're just gonna turn it
a couple of times okay good i'm just gonna stick it in
there
it's not the worst thing in the world it's not super comfortable but
same thing a couple of times
okay
thank you
and that was that we got to the airport we had to fill in a traveler declaration
form with our personal information time of entrance duration of our stay
emergency contact information symptoms if we are experiencing any etc
etc and then checked in with the airport
staff to prove that we had pending test results and learn about
what was expected from us as travelers
so just before we get to the baggage claim here
there is a line to check people make sure that they
either took a test they have result don't have results if you don't have
your result they will walk you through the next steps and so
on so we already checked online they do have answers to whatever
questions they need to know from us then we'll go and see
a few days later we get a call from arizona to learn that
long story short they lost our test results back in arizona
and so they let us know today and we're already here in alaska and
we're back to the airport because it's the one place where you can do the test
for free and so we're going to get tested
again and see how that goes hopefully they don't lose them this time
so it turns out we're only gonna have to do one more test maybe i don't know
not that bad i'll go ahead and give this to you then you're going to peel it open
from that end as if you're opening a
banding
the white tip goes all the way up the nose if you touch your head back a
little bit it helps and then you go all the way up until you feel
like you're ready to tear it's gonna go a little bit further back and then
you're gonna swap around for five seconds each side
five four three two and one okay and other side
i thought she meant front and back too don't worry
smile for the camera baby there you go two
and one okay and they're good swab tip right into there
there you go good evening baby good job okay i have trash right here
you like some tissue i'm good thank you all right
and this time it's a self-administered test yup
doing the swab ourselves not that much fun
and the results turned out to be negative for both of us so yay to that
the different the other one was like a regular key too i think you went all the
way up you can see like my eyes are red it's
like i got punched in the face by me i'm not gonna go all the way up but i
feel like 100 accuracy my frontal lobe had an itch
all right so that's done now that we cleared out the requirements to be here
in the beautiful state of alaska we will get rolling so stay tuned for a
new adventure with trekking pals habiba and alex
you