1 Couple, 3 Weeks, 4 Pairs of Underwear

The Dead Sea(son) - by Juli

2010-09-07T11:43:00.000-07:00

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. . .

What you got in that bag?

2010-08-27T08:58:00.000-07:00

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)

Peru and Bolivia Wrap-up

2009-11-15T21:30:00.001-08:00

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)

Machu Picchu, hereafter abbreviated as MP (by Todd)

2009-10-23T17:12:00.000-07:00

An early morning flight brought us to Cusco, where we had quite a list of tasks to accomplish for the morning - it was quite a nice little Saturday, not sure we´d have enough time to visit Home Depot...

Visit a doctor for Juli´s leg and get some professional assessment of the damage

Do laundry for the first time on the trip

Get some Peruvian currency (Soles)

Decide when and how we would be making the trip to Aguas Calientes (think of AC as ¨base camp¨for a visit to MP)

Buy tickets for MP and the other Incan ruins around Cusco

Find out if any treks to the Choquequirao ruins were scheduled anytime soon

The doctor recommended that Juli not do any intense trekking, so our plans to hike to the ruins of Choquequirao were scuttled. While Juli was at the doctor, Todd handled the laundry and currency issues, leaving only the MP tickets and visit planning to go.

MP is a bit difficult and costly to visit on one´s own...tickets can be purchased in advance in Cusco (with Peruvian Soles only, exact change required) and are good only for one visit within the following three calendar days. From Cusco you have to get to a town called Aguas Calientes - the easiest way is by rail but of course, there is only one rail company so prices are pretty high (ranging from $75 to $300 one way). We found an alternative around this by taking two taxis (for $8) to reach a city called Ollantaytambo and then hopping on the train from there where it is strangely cheaper ($30) and more frequent. This also gave us the chance to visit the ruins at Ollaytantambo, the site where the Incan emporer fled after he failed to recapture Cusco from the Spanish conquistadors, despite having a manpower advantage of greater than 100,000 to 170. We´ve been reading an excellent book on the fall of the Inca Empire (see reading list to your right), which makes quite a difference in visiting these historical sites, some of which sadly may look to others like just piles of rocks.

We arrived in AC around 11PM, found our hostel, and prepped our daypack for the mornings visit to MP. From AC there are two options to get to MP - by bus or by foot, of course we chose the latter. We woke at 4:30AM, strapped on our headlamps, and stumbled out of our hostel around 5AM to begin the hour and half hike straight up the hill, about 400 vertical meters, to the gate of MP. It was pretty brutal, especially when we arrived and saw about 200 people who had beaten us there by taking the bus. But at least we were within the magic first 400 admissions, which gave us the ¨right¨to make another 700 vertical meter climb to Wayna Picchu, the peak you see in the background of all the famous photos of MP (including the one to the right on this very page).

Compared to other ruins MP is quite impressive in its scale and its state of conservation - to us it is definitely its worth its billing as one of the man-made wonders of the world. Though intially foggy, we had some sun break later in the day which allowed for some decent photo ops. Early in the day it was quite easy to move about the site, but as the crowds poured in (day-trippers on the train from Cusco) it became more difficult to walk around. We spent about 5 hours at the site before heading back down the hill (this time we took the bus!) to catch our afternoon train back to Ollaytantambo. We ´splurged´on the ´Vista Explorer´train which included some kind of cultural show and an alpaca wool fashion show, both of which Todd slept through - but Juli got some good pictures we´ll post later. Once in Ollaytantambo it was back in a taxi to Cusco where, for the first time on the trip, we had planned to spend two consecutive evenings in the same hotel!

Livin' La Vida Lima (by Todd)

2009-11-04T11:04:00.001-08:00

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.

And Now...Deep Thoughts (by Todd)

2009-11-03T21:15:00.000-08:00

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.

Cozying up in Cusco (by Todd)

2009-10-28T16:17:00.000-07:00

We made it back to Cusco eager to find a place to stay - finally the third place we checked had a room available, and claimed to have hot water so we threw our packs down and took it. We should have checked on that hot water claim, however - the hot water that did exist lasted only for my shower, after that (for the next two days) we had trouble resurrecting it. But eager to sleep in the same bed two nights in a row, we decided against moving hotels.

Our first night in Cusco was pretty uneventful...having hiked to MP early that morning, up and down Wayna Picchu in the late morning, and having a touch of ´Montezuma´s Revenge´(or whatever the Peruvian equivalent is), I was extremely beat and needed to sleep....all I could manage was a little walk around town before I had to pass out for the night.

The next day we attempted to cash in on our ´boleterios turisticos´, which are used to visit many of the historical sites around Cusco. The highlight was the mountain fortress (ruins) of Saqsaywaman (say "sexy wo-man"). We also visited a site called Qorichanka, which is a monestary that was built on top of one of the Inca´s most important religous temples, and actually incorporates some of the original Inca structures. Sadly the walls of gold that once existed were melted down during the Spanish conquest, leaving the true version only to one´s imagination.

Our second day in Cusco we arranged to go on a white-water rafting trip with Mayuc rafting, which was an excellent trip, even though the rapids were not strong enough for Juli´s tastes...mostly class II and just a couple class III rapids along the way. Though the guide did add to the excitement by tipping our raft over at one point and we did do something new (at least for me) - after shooting down one rapid we turned around and paddled back into it, at a point where the water dropped about 3 feet, and we had the raft ´surf´the wave created by the falling water...it was really tough to exert the effort to paddle back in (we failed on our first attempt), but once we were positioned, water came gushing into the raft but the raft remained right on the small ´falls´on its own. The Mayuc base camp was also equipped with a sauna which made dealing with the snowmelt water in the river a little more bearable.

On our return from rafting we headed to the bus station to board an overnight bus to Arequipa, a town a bit south of Cusco. Unfortunately there were no ´cama´(full recline) seats available on the bus, so we settled for a ´semi-cama´seat which is generally equivalent to an airplane seat. Between our seating arrangements, the noise level on the bus, and fact that the bus broke down on the way, it was a long night and morning of travel to Arequipa.

Staying Active in Arequipa (by Todd)

2009-11-02T22:35:00.000-08:00

We had hoped to arrive in Arequipa at 6AM and join a trip to the Colca Canyon (most leave around 8-9AM), but due to general ineptitude of the Cruz Del Sur bus company we didn't make it to Arequipa until 9AM, and all the trips had already departed for the day. So instead we stopped at nice-looking cafe and indulged in an 'American-style' desayuno (breakfast) with scrambled eggs, a nice treat after the monotony of simple bread rolls and papaya juice which is served up at pretty much every hostel/hotel in Bolivia & Peru. But our culinary adventures did not end there. For dinner we had a Peruvian delicacy of cuy, which is guinea pig. The whole animal, buck teeth and all, splayed out and crispy on a dinner plate. I can't say it was anything spectacular - tasted very much like tender chicken meat, but took a heck of effort to get at the very small slivers of meat within - then again, maybe I just had a thin one...the ones I saw alive in the pens in other restaurants looked a lot more meaty.

Since we had missed out on a two-day tour of Colca Canyon, we instead booked a day tour, which is a pretty aggressive trip that begins with a 2AM pick up and wraps up around 5PM the same day. We decided not to press our luck by partying until 2AM and instead called it an early night, around 10PM. The early pickup is necessary so that you can arrive at the lookout point for condors at a good time. Fortunately we were rewarded for our early rise with three condor sightings! We had a great tour guide, Irena from Colonial Tours, who told us a ton about the Colca Canyon, Arequipeno culture, and history. The Colca Canyon is deeper than the Grand Canyon but not as visually stunning (in our opinion). Still, it made for a solid and entertaining day trip.

On our final day in Arequipa we did some mountain biking. We had hoped to join with a larger group, but we ended up on our own private trip down the side of the Chachani volcano (one of three volcanoes that surround Arequipa). Starting from an altitude of 4900 meters, we (mostly) descended for about 2 hours on fire roads, rough single track, sandy single track, and finally asphalt. The views of Arequipa were amazing, the wildlife mostly lacking; and we finsihed with only one very minor crash along the way. It had been a long time since either of us had done any mountain biking, but it was a good way to get some activity in before our 16 hour overnight bus ride to Lima, which left later that day.

Todd had booked the bus tickets and we had expected to get a full cama seat for the long bus ride to Lima. However, Passport Junkie clearly has some additional research to do in South America - we stepped on the bus and noticed only regular seats, even less comfy than the 'semi-camas' we had on our previous trip. There was no choice but to buckle down and try to bear out the ride. At first we were worried that no food or drink would be served - in anticipation of the cama/1st class service we had only a small bottle of water and had left our emergency food (CLIF bars) in our checked luggage. Fortunately about 3 hours into the ride we were served a little dinner and drink. Then we popped the Advil PMs and fell asleep to the sounds of others' snores and the movies (but not before Todd finished watching the movie Troy). Recommendation for travel in South America - bring an eye mask and earplugs - they can make the bus rides a lot more comfortable!

Fortunately the bus was in better working order, we rolled into Lima on schedule around 9AM the next day, to begin our final two days/one night in Peru.

Wild Times in the Amazon Basin (by Todd)

2009-10-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

Yet again, bright and early we packed our bags and left our hostal to strike out for the Bolivian Pampas, which is roughly equivalent to the Everglades and swamp areas of Louisiana. Our group had eight members (and we were one of three groups heading out on the same trip). Unbeknownst to us we had booked with the recommended tour agency from the Lonely Planet guidebook...not necessarily a bad thing, since it is always fun to meet folks from other places (we were the only Americans).

We squeezed into our Landcruiser and were off...until we ran out of gas less than one mile from town! Apparently when the local gas station gets its tanks filled, the enterprising locals drain them all and resell the gas on a secondary market. We made several stops at random houses, after which the driver would appear with a 2-liter Coke bottle filled with a yellowish liquid, which would be dumped into the gas tank and on we went to the next stop on the pirate gas tour. After 3 hours of this charade we were on our way, and due to being late the driver did his best to emulate his favorite Dakar rally racer.

Mercifully in about 3 hours we arrived at the river, piled into a little boat, and were off along the river. Almost immediately we began seeing caiman (similar to crocodiles but mostly black in color) lounging on the riverbank, and even in the river just feet from our boat. There was probably a caiman or alligator every 20 yards or so. Same story for capybayra, which are essentially gigantic guinea pigs. Along with those we saw pink dolphins, and several species of monkeys and birds.

Our camp was pretty deep in the pampas, so it was basic (it had running cold water and electricity) but came supplied with a sweet circular hammock room - immediately a beer run was commenced downriver, led by (of course) a very jocular Irish guy named Myles. We enjoyed some good food, good conversation, even music (live and on somebody´s iPod) each evening in the camp. We did have some drama - one of our group members apparently snored quite loudly one night, there was much yelling and consternation (of course I slept through all the commotion while Juli was awakened by it).

In addition to running the river looking for wildlife, we walked for 4 hours in fairly intense heat and humnidity in search of anacondas. At the very end, we heard over the radio that another group had found one so we double-timed it through waist-length grass to get there. Once we got there, a swarm of killer bees began attacking the other group and they were all running our direction telling us to do the same. But eventually the anaconda was re-captured and we stood in a circle watching it unwind itself from its defensive position. I joked with the group, "so when the anaconda unwnids and starts moving towards one of us, they must be the winner". Guess who was the winner. I did my best to stay still as it slithered around my feet and as soon as the coast was clear I ran away to the other side.

We then went swimming with the river dolphins, which neither Juli or I participated in due to her open wound on her leg and to my hestitancy to jump in right next to two alligators. Fortunately the only damage sustained was to another swimmer who got bit by a piranha. We got our revenge on the piranhas the next day by catching a few for lunch, aftr which we jumped back on the boat for the long journey back to Rurrenabaque. Issues ensued during that journey, but we did make it on our flight back to La Paz for the evening, where we got ready to leave Bolivia for Cusco Peru.

And Now...Deep Thoughts (by Juli)

2009-10-20T15:09:00.000-07:00

Spanish - So, I took three years of Spanish and you would never know it. I´m trying hard, but I have a really hard time keeping up with the locals here. It´s great practice and really makes me want to really learn spanish. Maybe that will be my 2010 New Year Resolution. Todd on the other hand studied French. I think he is just more naturally gifted at language because he seems to comprehend a lot more than I do. And he is never afraid to just take a stab at something or work his way around the situation (which there have been many). Oh well, I can say it, Todd is better at languages than I am.

Jealousy - So this vacation has been frought with jealousy, especially by Todd. Don´t worry nothing is going on. We are just jealous of the amount of time that everyone has to spend in South America. Most people we have meet have at least 6 weeks down here and many are taking 10 months to a year to travel throughout South America. There is an unbelievable amount of things to do and places to see, I think we will just have to keep coming back.

Copacabana, but not the famous one (by Juli)

2009-10-19T18:55:00.000-07:00

From Copacabana we took a boat trip out to Isla del Sol (recommended by friends that did an overland trip from Buenos Aires to the US). Isla del Sol is in the middle of Lake Titicaca and is beautiful. We landed on the north side of the island around 11:00 am and had to get to the south side by 3:30pm to catch the boat back to Copa. We spent 30 minutes touring some inca ruins; primarily a maze and sacrifice tables. Pretty interesting but hard to explain without pictures. We then hiked for 3 hours to get to the other side of the island. The views were amazing, blue water on all sides, but the hike was tough. We were still struggling from the altitude. After the long hike we enjoyed the two hour boat ride back to Copa.

We made it back to Copa in time to get one of the last buses back to La Paz. For 15 bolivianos each we took a very full bus (not as bad as the 30 or 45) for three hours. That equates to about $2 each, or the cost all of us San Franciscans pay for a 10 minute bus ride. Of course, the trip wasn´t without problemas. At a certain point in the journey, the bus has to cross part of the lake on a barge, and all the passengers take small boats. Well, Todd was more focused on finding a saltena (empanada) and we missed the first boat. So we got on the second and waited. We didn´t realize that the boat only goes when it is full (and it was far from full). So we waited while we watched our bus cross the lake. We finally made it across the river and had to run and yell to get the bus to stop for us. The bus had our packs and we weren´t about to be left without them, but I thougt I was going to die (running at that altitude wasn´t a good idea for me). Nevertheless, we made it to La Paz and on the flight to Rurrenbaque the next day.

On our first day in Rurrenbaque, we booked our pampas tour, booked flights to Cusco, exchanged money, went swimming, found a hotel and then headed to dinner. And I proceeded to fall in an open gutter and put a decent hole in my leg just below the knee (pictures to follow later). The three drinks I had at the mosquito bar may have impacted my coordination, but we all know that I´m naturally clumsy and it was DARK. Anyways, Todd can explain more about that later. Off to bed. Adios!

We made it!

2009-10-14T16:20:00.000-07:00

On one of the worst travel days for San Francisco (we had turbulence even while the plane was sitting at the gate!), we were alloted two seats together in the very last row of the flight to Miami...it was close, we were not sure if there would be a seat available for us. Same story in Miami, where we were the last two people to board the plane to La Paz. Of course Juli got first class, and Todd got a middle sea in coach (at least it was an exit row). But two Advil PMs later and we woke up flying next to the Andes.

The airport in La Paz is at 4,000m, and the altitude hit us immediately as we stepped off the plane. Juli was worried she´d have to sprint past immigration control and hit the restroom, while Todd was dizzily holding all the bags and getting our documentation order for inspection and to buy a visa. We popped a Diamox right away and things began to settle down a bit, but we´re still feeling the effects so taking it very slowly.

We had hoped to buy a ticket to Rurrenabaque but found out that all the flights were either cancelled or sold out, so a change in the itinerary was in order. Since we made it a day earlier than expected, we decided to hop on a bus for Copacabana, a city on Lake Titicaca (the highest navigable lake in the world, whatever that means). About 4 hours later we had arrived, found a place to stay, and were ready to hit the town. We even took in the sunset on a swan-shaped paddle boat. So romantic (it is our honeymoon)! It will be a short stay, we´re out of here tomorrow evening to try to get to Rurrenabaque again, but not until we take a boat trip over to Isla del Sol and Isla de la Luna. So far we really like fading into Bolivian, its our style - a little rough but nothing too bad, and ridiculously cheap. More to come, stay tuned!

And we're off (almost)

2009-10-13T08:18:00.000-07:00

We picked a great day to leave the Bay Area - very crappy weather, I'm sure we'll have a delay at the airport. Did a last minute check of the flights to La Paz and they are oversold...we may have to spend an extra night in Miami, or change course and head to Lima instead (there are two flights per day from Miami to Lima, only one to La Paz). Fingers crossed that we'll make it on our flights!

Africa 2008 Summary

2009-09-29T18:36:00.000-07:00

We took 1,437 photos on our trip, but rather than subject you to that we've picked the top 60 and put them in an online gallery...enjoy!

To view photos click here

If you're interested in getting copies or printing any photos, contact us and we can send you the full resolution files.

Itinerary Recap:

18-20 June - Get There (SF - LA - Zurich - Nairobi)
22 June - Start 5 day safari (Serengeti and Ngorongoro)
27 June - Start Kilimanjaro climb (w/ Julie, Lynn and Danny)
2 July, 7AM - Uhuru Peak (1 July, 9PM in CA)
4 July - Arrive in Zanzibar
10-12 July - Get Home (Nairobi - Zurich - Frankfurt - DC - SF)

Flights arranged!

2009-10-03T12:04:00.000-07:00

With an unknown departure date, we're going to roll the dice and fly on stand-by to get to Bolivia. There's one flight a day on American from Miami to La Paz, so we'll cross our fingers and hope they have two extra seats for us. If we can't get on we can always try the other daily flight to Lima.

We were able to book a flight using miles, from Lima Peru to San Francisco for both of us and for a total of only 35,000 miles and $80! This booking wasn't without incident however...took us three calls to find a competent enough agent to help us. Booking an international ticket on miles is often tricky if you are trying to use one of the airline's alliance partners - for some reason (maybe to make it more difficult to use your miles?) call center agents can't do a search for mileage ticket availability across multiple partner carriers at once. We often find ourselves in these situations since the partner carriers often have better flight options for our destinations. If we hadn't explicitly asked the agent to book us on LAN from Lima to Los Angeles and American from Los Angeles to San Francisco, we would have ended up on American all the way and gone from Lima to Miami to San Francisco...a nice 8+ hour detour.

Although it can take a lot of work on your end, you can make mileage tickets go very far for international travel...get to it if you want to use them!

We continue to "negotiate" the itinerary...Juli wants to visit the Amazon, Todd wants to visit the silver mines of Bolivia...and unfortunately we have a very small time window for this trip...we'll each be doing some reading on Bolivia and Peru and return to negotiation table soon.

3 days later and we're ready to start (by Juli)

2008-06-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

After an 11 hour flight with drug-aided sleep, we arrived in Zurich. The Euro Cup soccer tournament has been taking place across Switzerland, and we strolled downtown to watch the Portugal vs. Germany game at the 'Fan Zone', a cordoned off area of downtown for soccer hooligans. We decided to "Go Big" since we didn't have anything to do the next day except fly. Rookie mistake! Flying with a hangover is the worst, but the business class seat made it somewhat bearable. I'm definetly spoiled.

We arrived in Nairobi after dark and were ready to hit the town, but with the locals repeated warnings against going anywhere (even a block from the hotel) we decided to play it safe. Nairobi isn't nicknamed Nairobbery for nothing.

We got up early to see what we could in Nairobi before taking a 6 hour bus ride to Aurusha. We went to two conservation centers; one for elephants and one for giraffes. I had to see if the Monahan tongue was longer than the lengedary giraffe. Score one for the giraffe, but just barely. We even met Obama's 'cousin' and we promised that we would tell Obama 'hi' for him. Now if we could only pronounce his cousin's name.

Tomorrow morning we start our safari to Tarangire Natl Park, Serengeti NP, and the Ngorongoro crater. Over dinner, the owner of the safari company, an eccentric German transplant, treated us to some local stories and beers. So far, Tanzania is showing potential.

Safari Mis-adventures (by Todd)

2008-07-03T06:15:00.000-07:00

Sadly, our access to the internet has been more limited than expected while on safari and while climbing Kilimanjaro...so we're making this blog a little retro and we'll post a bit about our safari and next time we get internet we'll post about the Kili trip. Also, I understand the people have spoken and the fu-man has been requested. You will be rewarded shortly. We had hope to put up a new poll question today, but this computer is not benig helpful...so here it is - there were 8 trekkers in our group who started the climb of Kili. Of the 8, how many do you think made it to the summit? Answers to come in a future post...

After meeting the owner of the safari company for dinner and beers we were really fired up. Unfortunately, the execution was not quite up to our expectations. We should have known the first morning when the driver was 45 minutes late and the Landcruiser that would be our home for the next 5 days refused to start. But we gave it the benefit of the doubt and headed off to Tarangire National Park. On our way we made our first pharmacy stop of the trip for my flu-like symptoms. Afer refusing their offers of valium as a sleep aid, I settled on a children's medicine that worked decently for short periods of time. At the entrance to the park we experienced another delay as the driver's credit card was refused for park fees. Evenutally we did make it into the park and saw many elephants, zebras, and cape buffalo, many within arm's reach of the car!

The next day was a loooooong drive to Serengeti NP, which included our second pharmacy stop on my behalf, this time I tried the antibiotic route (after a previous barrage of meds from our first aid kit failed to do the job). Mostly I zoned out during this day as I was feeling really bad, but I am pretty sure we stopped at an archeological site on the way, and then sat around the entrance of the park for another hour or so. Then we went bumpily on our way through the park, where we came right up on a family of lions resting in the shade!

The next day I was not feeling up to even going out on a morning game drive, so Juli went alone and saw a familyof lions feasting on an early morning wildebeest breakfast, and another family playing in the grass. In the afternoon I was able to join up and see thousands of migrating wildebeests and zebras, as well as a family of lions relaxing by the river. Around the midpoint of the safari I started feeling better...right as Juli started getting sick and feeling like crap. So we had quite the "solo yet together" safari experience. Our car was also getting sicker...at this point it required one of two things for the engine to start - either we had to be stopped on a slope or another car had to push us from behind. This was especially good when we were stopped near a group of lions and one by one, every other safari car ignored our requests for help, expect for the very last one. And the driver's reluctance to turn off the car engine led to many shaky pictures for me...not good. After spending a dusty day in the Seronera area of the Serengeti, where we supposedly saw a leopard, we headed back on the road to the Ngorongoro Crater. The crater is a depressed volcano where thousands of animals live and don't leave, making it a great place to go on safari.

Due to the rapidly deteriorating condition of our car, the driver requested a loan from yours truly to pay for repairs...however despite the mechanics' efforts the car remained as it was, and on the final day of our safari the driver said we could not turn off the engine. We were well rewarded by watching three lionesses on the hunt for wildebeests in the morning - watching them slowly close in an triangulate around a their targets made for thrilling theater, even if the wildebeests got away in the end. We also saw a rhino on this day, though it was too far away to get a real good look or take pictures. Mercifully we made the drive to Moshi, with Juli pretty much completely sick with the flu and me on the way back up (or so I thought), where our driver deposited us at the hotel where early the next morning we would begin our hike up Kilimanjaro.

Start climbing! (by Juli)

2008-07-06T23:04:00.000-07:00

The safari was amazing, but by the end we were so restless. We spent five days sitting around all day, we couldn't even go for walks in the evening (except for the walk between the buffet and our dinner table). I was quite stir crazy and very ready to spend some hours hiking up kili. Be careful what you wish for. Half way through day 1, I was exhausted. I felt like I had ran a marathon in the smoggy 909. My lungs burned; probably from the chest cold that Todd gave me. During the day i thought there was no way i would finish the 7 day trek up kili. It was a rough 6 hour hike. i finished last out of eight.

Our group consisted of

Todd

Lynn (friend from univeristy)

Danny (Lynn's new husband, it was their honeymoon)

Julie (Lynn's sister)

Angela (Dubai transplant from Canada)

Dips (Dubai transplant from England)

Noriyuki (Dubai transplant from Japan)

Angela and Dips were lifesavers for us. They supplied us with tissues, wipes, vicks, altitude meds and contact lens solution (todd left his at the hotel). Our group was great. And our guides were fantasitc, but I wasn't sure if i was going to make it past day 2.

Here's all of us (minus Noriyuki) at the starting Machame Gate:

The climb continues (by Juli)

2008-07-09T07:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry about not finishing the last blog. Africa is very far away, so the internet is really slow here and I didn't have the patience to finish the post. The internet speed is also why we haven't posted many pictures, so we are going to have to wait till we get back home to post more of those.

Okay, so after making it through the first day, we enjoyed a fantastic dinner of potatoes and meat served in our warm mess tent. The porters, guides and service staff were amazing. The porters (there were 16 of them for our group of 8) carry 25 kilos a day and make only $7 a day. The head guide, Jacob, was in the Imax movie 'To the Roof of Africa'. Jacob is pretty old and a smoker, I don't know how he climbs Kili so effortlessly. Day 2 through 5 were kind of a blur. We hiked a lot and then ate a lot. Typically we were walking for 5-6 hours per day, slowly making our way closer to the summit. We slept when we could - my sleeping bag mattress had a leak so it was hard to sleep. Luckily Todd traded with me for a couple of nights, I don't think he wanted to deal with me after 4 nights of not sleeping. It was freezing at night (especially when a midnight bathroom run was required) but very comfortable during the day.

On the fifth night, we were camped at about 4900 meters, our last camp before making the charge to the top. Thus far nobody in our group had experienced any altitude issues. That evening after an early dinner we went to bed at 7pm and were awakened at midnight to start the ascent to the top. We quickly dressed, drank tea, and tried to get our handwarmers to work. We brought six hand warmers and none of them worked, we think it might have had something to do with the altitude. 8 trekkers and 4 guides left camp the camp around 12:45 AM. I knew it would take about 6 hours to make it to the top, but I didn't think it would be that hard. It was grueling. For those of you in SF, it was like walking up California street in sand in the freezing cold (and I mean cold, all of the water in our nalgene bottles and other folks' camelbaks froze). For most of the trail up it was a basic dirt path, but then near the top it turned to clambering over ice and rocks on a fairly vertical path. The altitude also makes it tough to breathe (the highest I have ever been before Kili was the top of mammoth at about 11,000ft). Along the way we saw a few 'casualties' from other groups, either huddled on the side of the trail or being helped down the mountain by a guide. Around 3:30AM, one of our group fell behind for good - she was getting too sick and could not continue. The headlamps of climbers above us clearly communicated we had a LOOOOONG way to go to the top...I hated to look up because every time I'd see a few lights really high above our current position, which meant we still had a big climb ahead.

Just before sunrise, seven of us clambered up a stretch of glacier to get to Stella Point, which meant we were just 45 more minutes from the very top. Amazing glaciers were all around us at the top, there was definitely more ice than I had expected (I have heard that the ice will all melt within 10 years). Slowly, the seven of us made it to Uhuru Peak, the highest point of Africa at 5,900m/19,000 ft. Todd and I both made it! I was so happy, I didn't think it would happen. The last hour was slow going on the glacier, but being able to see the peak made it bearable for me. I think Todd has a different feeling about the last hour :(. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. Even Lynn who has run marathons and triathalons, said it was the hardest thing she ever did.

So, we made it, but we still had to get back down. We were at the peak for about 20 minutes taking pictures and than we headed back to the camp at 4900m. We got back around 11:30, passed out for an hour and than set off again for the next camp, which was at about 3800m. In all, we hiked for about 15 hours that day. It was rewarding, but I will never do that again.

Zanzibar - more than just a GI Joe character (by Todd)

2008-07-10T04:13:00.000-07:00

Our original flight from Kilimanjaro to Zanzibar was 'diverted' to Johannesburg on account of the 50+ South Africans who were climbing Kili in a group on the same schedule as us. So instead of leaving at 7AM as expected, we did not take off until around noon, on a completely different airline, headed for the mysterious archipelago of Zanzibar.

Unbenownst to myself, Zanzibar is the most common name given to a group if islands off the coast of Tanzania, that until the early 60s was a country unto itself. It has been a stop for traders and sailers from nearly all corners of the world (but most specifically from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia) since at least the very first century AD. It's a conservative Muslim society, and Juli had a little trouble wrapping her burka at first, but the dirty looks abated as the days went on. The Zanzibaris seem to be very fond of fu-man-chus, however, as long as I kept my knees covered.

The first order of business for us was figuring out how to get to our final destination, Lamu in Kenya. During our 'planning phase' for this trip, I had brazenly told Juli we should just figure it out when we got to Zanzibar instead of trying to book something ahead of time (those who know us know that such spontenaeity is in strict violation of our 'normal' behavior). Unfortunately the cheapest route we found was priced at $550 each! We looked into chartering a plane, a boat, and various other options with no success (the parents will be happy we quickly eliminated riding the bus due to frequent robberies by Somali bandits), so we decided to stick in Zanzibar for a week instead.

After a furious 30 minutes studying somebody's borrowed Lonely Planet guidebook, we decided to head up north to the beach town of Nungwi, which promised nice beaches and good nightlife, something both of us were definitely looking forward to after the Kili experience. As the taxi veered off the paved road and through some rough dirt, we were rewarded with the blinding white sands and the amazing turquiose waters of the Indian Ocean, and we both felt the stress of our travel issues melt away. We settled in a cheap beach bungalow, basic and clean and just a few steps from the beach. It was also just a few steps from the loudest bar in Nungwi, and provided us with great bass grooves deep into the night (really deep, like 3 or 4AM).

We passed the days lazily (for us), doing some snorkeling, reading, kayaking, and almost any other activity we could do near the beach and water. On account of having so much time in Zanzibar, we even had one day where we planned absolutely NOTHING (shocking, I know). But of course one hour into that day we got stir-crazy and decided to setup a scuba diving trip for the day following.

Neither of us had ever been scuba diving before, so we signed up for the most basic course which they said consisted of a few lessons in a pool and then one dive. To our surprise (somewhat), there was no pool - they loaded us up on a boat and started out to the ocean. About five minutes before we arrived at the reef the guide went over all the instructions with us, something about a regulator, signals if you can't breathe, etc. I was sufficiently terrified. The boat stopped, the guide jumped in, and told us to do the same. At first it was just strange to be completely underwater and breathing normally (pretty heavily for me actually, but at least breathing in and out underwater was just surreal). We sank to the bottom of a 2-3m area and did some practice 'drills' which first consisted of having to remove your regulator from your mouth, throw it behind you, then find it and put it back in - I am sure Juli could see the terror in my eyes as I frantically searched for the mouthpiece to restore my air...she is the one who is good in the water, while I am always freaking out about my contact lenses or something else that is inconsequential. But I was able to find it without turning too deep a shade of blue, and then it was really 'go time,' and we headed for the reef.

I quickly warmed to the scuba diving - I don't think I can go back to snorkeling after having the freedom to stay underwater for 45 minutes at a time, and go deep to see more interesting marine life, of which there was tons...even for our guide there were some firsts, a leaffish which was well disguised on some coral; a few ribbon eels and lobsters, and a couple manta rays. Juli and I were really pumped about the diving and fortunately they let us go on a second dive in the area, which was just as great as the first. We only made it to a depth of about 8m (24ft) at the most, but it was an incredible experience - made us wish we had tried it sooner (especially a couple years ago in Thailand), but made us certain we would try again.

We had one final meal in Nungwi, chilled at a beach bar with a group of four from South Africa, and arranged for a morning ride to take us back to Stone Town (the big city on Zanzibar island) for our remaining few days in Africa.

Zanzibar Part 2 (by Todd)

2008-07-10T10:51:00.000-07:00

As with our first visit to Stone Town, we were initiallay focused on figuring out how to get to Nairobi on July 10th (in order to make our return flight home). We assumed since there were at least three flights a day to Nairobi, and that it was Zanzibar's low season, that this would not be a problem. Again our lack of advance planning bit us in the behind and we were left with only one option, an expensive 6AM flight - which gave us 16 hours to spend in Nairobi (our flight back home departed at 11:45PM).

So once again we were in the busy part of the island, where the Islamic inlfuence is omnipresent - you're surrounded by veiled women & skull-capped men, and several times a day calls to prayer drift over the city from numerous mosques. Unfortunately, also everywhere are the touts (in Swahili they are called papasi which literally mans 'ticks') that want you to take a taxi ride, book a tour through them, buy something from their shops, or in one form or another get you to part ways with your money. It definitely gets tiring to politely respond to the incessant greetings and welcomes you get just walking down the street, but we had lots of opportunity to practice our hapana ahsantes (no thank yous).

We took a small boat out to one of the surrounding islands called Changuu, which at one time served as a quarantine station for people arriving by ship to Zanzibar, but today its main attraction (at least for us) is the population of hungry Aldabra tortoises which inhabit the island, and which they allow visitors to walk amongst and feed. Supposedly they are second in size to the species found on the Galapagos Islands (one of our future vacation destinations). We had to go off the beaten path a bit, but we found the biggest turtles sunning themselves in a far corner of the turtle habitat. We even orchestrated a few turtle races between some of the turtles using the lure of fresh food (but of course rewarded both the winners and losers with a treat at the end).

For eats we sampled the Zanzibari nightmarket, a set of food stalls that opens up shop each night near the waterfront. Manned by the typical agressive papasi, they eagerly court your business to at least 'take a look' at their food, even if it is exactly identical to five other food stalls within the area. Our two favorites were Zanzibar Pizza and beef skewers on chapati, each of which could be purchased for about a dollar. I love places like this where you can try so many different foods, all the while keeping a nervous hand on your Immodium tablets. This video gives you a good idea of what the food market looks and sounds like:

On our final full day in Zanzibar we had to decide between two of the islands' famous activities - a Spice Farm Tour or Swimming with Dolphins. Due to Juli's love of dolphins (if she were an animal she would definitely be a dolphin), it was a hard choice to make - in Zanzibar you actually swim with wild dolphins in the ocean - by means of small boats that chase down groups of dolphins and then - SPLASH! - in go the tourists. This sounded a bit strange to us, and perhaps even a bit cruel, so we decided not to support this enterprise and instead go with the more traditional option of the Spice Tour.

The tour took us to a few farms where we could see and smell the variety of spices for which Zanzibar is known (vanilla, cinnamon, clove, etc.). We also got to taste some of the crazy fruits grown on the island like jackfruit, lychee, and elephant apples. A spice-laden rice and curry was served for lunch that was really tasty, even if we had to sit on the ground to eat (my flexibility in such situations leaves a bit to be desired). After one more stroll around downtown Stone Town and some food from the nightmarket, we headed back to the hotel in preparation for an early wake-up call to get our 6AM flight to Nairobi. We picked out our least-stinkiest clothes for the long journey home. Everything was great until Juli forgot to close the mosquito net around our bed...

The Long Road Home (by Juli)

2008-07-13T17:58:00.000-07:00

We woke up at 4:30 to make our 6:00 flight out of Zanzibar. As Todd noted, I forgot to close the mosquito net, so I woke up with about 30 mosquito bites. Todd had less than 10. I even had 4 on my face. It was going to be a rough day for me.

We arrived in Nairobi, Kenya and found a driver for the day. We had pretty much exhausted all the touristy things to do in the city on our previous visit so we figured we would spend a portion of the 15 hour layover buying underwear and watching movies, so we asked the driver to take us to a shopping mall that had a movie theater. Laundry wasn't as readily available as we thought during our trip and we had to make an emergency purchase at the mall. There were only two movies playing, Hancock and Prince Caspian: Chronicles of Narnia. I was excited about Hancock and wanted to pass on Narnia; however, we really had nothing better to do.

We had our final African meal at the mall, the very Swahili cuisine of pasta and chicken tacos - believe it or not, the tacos were actually really good (avacados are curiously popular in Africa...definitely not something we expected). After passing about 9 hours at the mall we headed back to the airport around 7:00pm. It took us a few tries to find a taxi driver who would take us to the airport for 1250 Kenyan Shillings (about $20), which was literally all the money we had left in our wallets at the end of the day, but we found a willing driver. We were counting on the airport having a business class lounge so we could get a free dinner, and we were rewarded. After getting enough free food to fill our bellies, we boarded the plane and went to sleep. From Nairobi, we went to Zurich and then on to Frankfurt (about 10 hours of flying). Luckily for everyone around us, we were able to check in to the hotel room early so that we could shower before hitting the town. We had lunch and then went on a three hour walking tour of Frankfurt. I think we saw everything there is to see in Frankfurt, so we headed to the bars. We tried some apple wine and numerous hefeweizen, but mostly we just watched the German men in their tank tops, capri pants and fanny packs.

On Saturday morning we headed to the airport for the last legs home; Frankfurt to Dulles to LAX to SFO. I couldn't wait to be home. My bug bites were killing me and I had a stomach bug. In africa, we ate at the night market and on the mountain ate food cooked by a guy that hadn't showered in 6 days, but we didn't get sick from the food until we ate in Germany. My stomach is still a little off. We finally made it home at 9:30 pm on Saturday July 12 - we left Zanzibar around 8:00pm PDT on Wednesday July 9, so it was a long trip home. We took nice long showers, did some badly needed laundry, and hung up our packs until next time...

Climbing wrap party (by Todd)

2008-07-09T08:07:00.000-07:00

First I'll have to say a few words about the Kili climb...as Juli mentioned, it was so much more difficult than I expected - I had heard about so many people doing it, I thought it would be a nice little walking path all the way up...which in some parts it was, but to finish required lots of clambering over rocks and ice. Added on top of that was the 'false summit' of Stella Point, which is where I took in the sunrise. I was so burnt out once I hit Stella Point, sat down and watched the sun; it was hard to get my legs to move forward and take me to the summit, even though it was in sight and I knew it was close. Mentally and physically, it was one of the most challenging experiences of my life. It does feel good however to have made it to the top with such great guides (I should also mention that one of them took my pack for about an hour during the summit attempt after he watched me weaving back and forth on the path) and great co-climbers. I had thought maybe I would be hit with the 'mountain madness' bug and start to do more climbing, but right now I can't see that happening.

So after our mammoth summit day hiking experience, it was almost over as we descended to the final camp and had our last group dinner. At dinner the head guide awkwardly tried to talk to us about tipping, etc. - little did he know we had already decided as a group what to do. Each of us threw in some amount, between $150 and $200, which I collected and then came up with a couple options for how much to tip each porter, cook, assistant guide, & head guide. It was actually a lot easier than I thought to come up with a distribution scheme to which our group of 8 agreed. Then on the final morning we had a formal 'ceremony' where all the crew lined up while Danny and I said some big thank yous and handed them their money. They were pretty respectful when taking the money, we had heard that many porters act like you've just handed them a pile of doodoo when you give them the money...one stepped back and counted his, and immediately the rest of them were very excited about the tips.

But perhaps the biggest cheer of all went up when our Japanese team member Noriyuki reached into his bag and pulled out a handle of Bombay Sapphire Gin. Immediately they all went scrambling for cups, or anything that would hold the liquid as the head guide doled it out. I asked Noriyuki if he had carried that bottle the whole way and he said 'No, they did!!' The general agreement between all of us was that they were more excited for the booze than the money!

Either way we had a very happy (but muddy) final hike four hours down the hill to 1800m, where we received our summit certificates and boarded the bus to head back to the hotel for a badly needed hot shower (however the water pressure left much to be desired).

At dusk we stepped into the road outside our hotel to take in the Kili peak - until that moment we had not seen it except when we were actually on the mountain as there was a constant cloud cover over Moshi - it looked massive and looming over the city, much more so than it had on the trek itself. At the hotel we arranged for some even more badly needed laundry to be done, attempted to pay the rest of the trek fee that we owed (there is a long story about this, but the upshot is, if you travel to Africa, just bring a suitcase full of US dollars - it is far and away the currency of choice - traveller's checks, Tanzanian Shillings, and Scottish Pounds are near worthless), and Juli and I secured a flight to Zanzibar, albeit one that left at 7AM the next morning, making one more early wake-up necessary.

Upgrade...DENIED! (by Todd)

2008-06-18T17:14:00.000-07:00

We were on our way to LAX with aspirations of sweet-talking our way into an upgrade. We're flying on mileage tickets, and got charged for the amount equivalent to a first class ticket. But when we booked, the LAX-Zurich leg did not have first class or biz class availability. So we showed up at the airport a good three hours early try and plead our way out of coach.

Normally I'm really good at this kind of thing - my mom worked for American Airlines for 30+ years, and she taught me the way to handle airline employees. However, this ticket agent was having none of it, so we'll be in 48E and 48G on a stinking Airbus. In fact the flight is so full they had signs up asking for volunteers to DOWNGRADE to coach from business.

Fortunately, we were not deterred from enjoying the Star Alliance lounge where we can sample many liquors, Thai beers, fried rice, cheese and crackers, and other foods that are way too fancy for any domestic airline to serve.

However the most disturbing event in the 2 hours we've been on the trip now was this direct quote from Juli as we passed through security: "I don't think I can travel with you like this anymore." Message to Juli's bosses - no more first class flights to Brazil and Russia for her. Next thing you know she'll be checking luggage.