Packing...

You've heard the old advice for packing, right? "Lay out everything you are taking. Take half the stuff, twice the money." Ok well I halved and halved and halved again...and at least now it all Fits in my backpack. It's stuffed to the brim though, which doesn't bode well for souvenir-ing. I guess I'll have to figure out what I can live without (and there's not even a single pair of heels in that bag!). I'd rather abandon my possessions here, where I know I can recover them someday, than somewhere on an Incan trail. Caity, I just wanted to blog because I was so proud of myself for getting everything in the bag, but now I see that it's back to the old drawing board...

Woo! We officially have plane tickets! Mine's a one-way and Caity'kins's is round-trip. We leave Saturday at 9 am from O'Hare and we have Megabus tickets to Chicago for Friday evening (we are staying with Caity's aunt for the night). Woulda left a couple days earlier, but the cheap-o airline was all booked through Saturday. Now that we have a date, it's time to get to work: buy travel health insurance, call credit cards, PACK (yeah, no, haven't done this yet), make all my last-time visits (again!), and clean my room until it sparkles (yay finally). I will blog more when there's more to blog....I know it's only Tuesday but I'm getting fired up! Too funny: I just checked the forecast for Saturday...in Indy? 71 and stormy...in Lima? 71 and cloudy. Same weather exactly, just maybe the people are a little tanner. :)

The Plan

I got an email today saying that my passport has been mailed..FINALLY!  And it will be here by Tue. which means that this time next week Ams and I will be in Lima, Peru!  We also finalized our  itinerary.  We are taking a bus  to Chicago to catch an 8 hour flight to Lima...with a 5 hour layover in Florida.   We will spend about a week in Lima and the surrounding areas before flying to Cusco, Peru.  Three days give or take in Cusco to acclimate to the high altitude and then we will be leaving on a 5 day/4 night camping/hiking tour which takes us to Machu Picchu.  After returning from our tour we ill travel by bus, from Cusco to our last city in Peru, Puno.  A few days there and then we will cross Lake Titicaca via ferryboat and arrive in La Paz, Bolivia.  A week in La Paz exploring around and getting accustomed to the Bolivian lifestyle and then we will depart by bus (10 hours) to Sucre, another city in Bolivia with much to see and do.  After a week in Sucre, a three hour bus ride will take us south to Potosi, a city in Bolivia known for its mining.  We will be able to tour around the mines and talk with the locals (if we've picked up enough Spanish along the way).  A few days there and then we have a long bus journey even farther south to Uyuni, Bolivia (the last city on our trip).  We are going there to see Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world (4,086 sq. mi.)!!!  And from there we will be back tracking a little to Sucre, the closest town for us to catch a plane.  Me, back to Lima then home.  Amy, to Argentina to wait for her work visa or straight to Brazil to begin her new life!  Thats the plan and we're hoping to stick to it..for the most part.