Updates! (77 Days to go)
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008We have been very busy recently with checking things off of our to-do list. Here’s the latest update on our plans:
- We’ve booked a 4-day/3-night trek along the Inka Trail to Machu Picchu through Liz’s Explorer. We leave June 21st from Cusco and get back on the 24th (the day of their Inka Festival where they pretend to sacrifice a llama…and other things I’m sure, but the fake llama sacrifice makes me smile).
- We’ve purchased a new Peru travel book. While the $0.25 Footprints book was a good deal, it turns out that we’re not really fond of it. Both of us read different sections and came back not feeling like we’d really learned anything useful. So, we bought a Moon Handbook for Peru, which so far has some great information and a lot of maps (plus no advertisements which was a big drawback for me with the Footprint guide). We also bought an Ecuador Rough Guides book, which we also like.
- Steve just got back from San Francisco where he picked up our brand new China visas! I got a little nervous when I realized we should’ve gotten the visas before buying the plane tickets, but it worked out okay (our contingency plan if we didn’t get the visas was just to fly from Beijing to somewhere else and never leave the airport!). They were a whopping $130 a piece. We went with the one year, multiple entry visa. This made the most sense for us since it’ll be roughly 6 months before we go to China and the time frame starts from the time you buy them, not the time you enter the country. Plus they were the same price no matter which kind you bought and this one gives us the most flexibility.
- Steve and I are also getting ready to take the GRE. This doesn’t have much to do with traveling, it’s just one more thing on the long list of to-dos before it’s time to leave. We’re trying to get all of our graduate school applications either sent or ready to send so that we don’t have to worry about it while we travel. I’m usually pretty good at standardized tests, but I think the Verbal portion of this one is going to kick my butt. We’ll see.
And I think that’s about it for updates. Grad school planning has definitely taken over recently, but that’s getting under control as well. We both need to take the test and write our Statements of Purpose and then we’re almost home free. We’ll just need to sell our stuff, pack, book a couple of hostels (one for the first night in Lima so we don’t have to worry about it, and one for the night we get back from Machu Picchu since it’s going to be crowded in Cusco), find someone to watch Elizabeth for a year, and then get on the plane in time.
I’m a little relieved that things are coming together so well. Machu Picchu and the China Visas were the last two things I was nervous about. But now we’re set. We’re sort of planning out our time from when we get to Lima until the trek just so we make sure to get to Cusco with enough time to acclimate to the high elevation. But after that it’s all just open to what sounds the best.
montarsig