After 24 hours en route, we finally made it to Jordan. We arrived in Amman after midnight and picked up the Hertz rental car for the one hour drive to the Dead Sea. We got to the resort, yes, I said resort (check out the picture) and crashed for 12 hours. Very unlike us (on both counts). The resort was free thanks to Todd's six months in New York, and also due to the fact there were a total of about 25 other people there. It was fantastic, we spent a whole day hanging by the pool and floating in the Dead Sea - probably the best way to beat any jet lag. You can actually lie down on the water and read a book or magazine as your body is extra-buoyant due to the high salt content of the water. The Dead Sea is the most salinic body of water (31%) and is also at the lowest altitude on Earth (-400m below sea level). The mud and water is supposed to have healing powers. Not sure about that, but I felt great after that lazy day. Even Todd enjoyed rubbing the mud on himself.

The next day we got on the road and went to Wadi Mujib Nature Reserve to do a quick two hour hike. Todd wanted to do the 4 or 6 hour hike, but it wasn't available because of Ramadan (guides are required for the longer hikes there). Bummer ;) These "hikes" are little different though - they are on "wet" trails; it was a hike through a river (walk upstream, attempt to float downstream) in a siq (natural chasm formed from tectonic plates). At a few points we were up to water at our waists and using ropes to climb over rocks, but it was all worth it for the beautiful views and waterfall at the end. Unfortunately the water level was a bit too low to do some proper canyoning/floating, but we enjoyed trudging through anyway.

After Wadi Mujib we got on the road to head to Wadi Musa to visit Petra. We stopped at one castle (Karak Castle) on the way, it was built by Crusaders in the 1100s and a decent chunk of it still stands! Karak, however, is not the easiest city to navigate and we made many stops to ask for directions. Other than the 4 or 5 armed guard check points and not knowing if we were going the right direction, the drive was pretty uneventful. Up next, Petra. . .

As pictured above, here's what goes in Todd's Kelty Redwing 3100 for our trip:

• 3 pairs boardshorts
• 1 pair canvas pants
• 1 pair "shants" (pants that unzip to become shorts)
• 3 t-shirts, mostly dark colors (had to sneak two PPJ shirts in there)
• 1 button-up, long-sleeve shirt
• light fleece
• anorak (light rain jacket)
• baseball cap
• 3 pairs underwear (of course) and socks
• Havaianas flip-flops
• Merrel water shoes
• bandana
• Pelican waterproof case
• Flip HD video camera
• Contacts supplies & glasses
• Toiletries
• Stack of Passport Junkie stickers
• Notebook & pens
• Liter Nalgene

Juli sports the Kelty Coyote 4750 W (that W is for WOMAN), she gets to bring:

• 2 sundresses
• 3 burkas
• 3 pairs pants (2 shants)
• 2 pairs of shorts
• 3 tank tops, 4 t-shirts
• light fleece
• two hats - rollup hat and baseball hat
• First aid kit
• sandals

And then we have one basic backpack that we use for a daypack, in which we bring:

• Books
• Cameras (one SLR and one point-and-shoot)
• Powerbars just in case
• 1/2 liter Nalgene

The general rules we try to follow are:

• Carry-on only - no checked bags
• mostly dark clothing (to hide stains of course),
• stuff that packs light and will dry quickly (no jeans)

Top 50 Trip Photos

The Itinerary:

• 13 October - Get There (SF - Miami - La Paz)
• 14 Oct: Copacabana, Lake Titicaca
• 16 Oct: Rurrenabaque, Bolivian Amazon
• 20 Oct: Sacred Valley (Ollayntatambo, Machu Picchu)
• 22 Oct: Cusco
• 24 Oct: Arequipa
• 27 Oct: Lima
• 29 October - Get Home (Lima - LA - SF)

As is our custom on these trips, we 'splurged' on our final hotel by using points to stay in the Lima Sheraton, where we didn't have to worry about 3 important things: good water pressure, availability of hot water, and having a comfy bed. As is custom for these nice hotels we stay in, we got a little bit of the evil eye as we rolled into the marble lobby straight off the overnight bus, but they found a room for us fairly quickly and we cleaned up and headed out for the 'trendy' district of Miraflores, a section of Lima that runs right up against the Pacific Ocean. It reminded us of a combination of Santa Monica + Miami, with striking cliffs atop of which were perched a bunch of condominiums, shopping malls, and restaurants (why is there a Tony Roma's in Lima Peru?). It was significantly more clean and nice compared to some of the other places we have been on our trip, which in a way made it a little uncomfortably strange.

In the evening we strolled through central Lima, through a few plazas filled with people and a pedestrian shopping/eating area. We settled into a restaurant that had a bunch of people in it and dined on another new item, skewers of grilled cow heart (antichucho). It wasn't all that bad and tasted more or less like any other beef we've eaten before. It was a Tuesday night and while we looked long and hard for any sign of nightlife, we didn't find anything great so we just called it a night - we knew we had a long day ahead of us the next day as our flight to LAX did not depart until 2AM.

On our last day of the trip, we did most of the central Lima sights, the highlight of which was the Church of San Francisco which included a library straight out of Indiana Jones, with books that were over 300 years old! It was really interesting but unfortunately no photos or videos are allowed inside. An added bonus to our final day was the crazy celebration taking place in the streets of Lima, it was some kind of religious festival having to do with Miracles, but nonetheless it was really busy on the streets, a few of which were closed to traffic, and there were food carts all over selling various tasty treats.

When it came time for dinner, we were ready to hit up a pena, which in Peru and Bolivia refers to a place with live music or other entertainment as well as dinner; unfortunately the one Pena in walking distance to our hotel was closed for a private party. Lucky for us, the street party was still going on so we decided to do a food cart crawl. Given that in a couple hours we were to board a plane for a long flight home, this was a pretty risky call, but we crossed our fingers that our stomachs could take it.

We wandered the streets and stopped at each and every cart that caught our eye. We ended up spending about 6 Soles for dinner for both of us, which is a little less than $2 USD! We had some tasty fried meat (which upon googling the name we now realize to be calf liver), some kind of fried potato with unknown items inside, some quasi-Asian noodles, a chicken sandwich, and a few dessert-like items...all in all an adventurous meal that we probably would not have had at the pena.

Around midnight we decided to call it a trip and head for the airport. The flight home was fairly uneventful, both of us slept pretty much the whole way to LAX and then hopped over to the domestic terminal to standby for the earlier flight to SFO, which was delayed of course, but still had seats for us. We made it home around 1PM, had some lunch, and then immediately started re-packing - we were due back at SFO the next day at 8AM to fly out to Indianapolis, where we had planned to visit for Halloween and the 49ers - Colts football game...and thus our whirlwind 2 weeks in Bolivia & Peru came to an end.

Travel Pace - for me, the most difficult part of this trip is our limited time...we kinda backed ourselves into a corner by committing to go to Indianapolis for Halloween. Two weeks would have been fine for Peru, but as we heard more about Bolivia we become convinced we had to include it in the trip. I'm definitely glad we ended up making it to Bolivia, but that decision has also meant constant movement, nearly every day, to a new city; unpacking and repacking the backpack. The pace we have traveled on this trip is about as fast as I think I can handle anymore.

Planning - this is an interesting trip in that we literally had nothing planned or booked ahead of time except for our flight home from Lima. Those of you that know us probably know that is about as opposite of our nature as can be, but it was a good experience to try travelling that way for once. I think we were helped by the recession and the fact we were visiting in shoulder season - I know a couple times we got some of the last tickets for transportation that were available, which made for a few stressful moments; but overall we did quite well considering we never had a reserved place to stay or a reserved seat on a bus/place until the day we needed them.