Just as I spent quite a bit of time on the research of where I should travel, I also spent about 5 months collecting money for it :) After the famous Inca Trail booking I started to build the schedule around the booked 4 day hike.
Full route (almost)
The schedule looks like this:
- 12th leaving Tallinn, going to US
- 12th-16th of June in San Francisco
- 16th-22nd of June in Minnesota
- 22nd of June leaving US, going to Peru
- 22nd-24th of June in Lima
- 24th-27th of June in Cuzco
- 27th-30th of June is the Inca Trail
- 30th of June till 1st of July in Cuzco
- 1st of June leaving Cuzco, going to Puno :)
- then there is some mystery, trying to come back along the coast, don't know the exact route yet
- 18th of July leaving Lima, going to Tallinn via US
- 19th of July, arriving in Tallinn
On the 24th of June there is the biggest celebration of the year in Cuzco: Inti Raymi - Festival of the Sun. That is why I'm not staying in US any longer, because of school I can't leave any earlier from Tallinn either.
What is required for the trip
As much as I wanted to just get the tickets and be done, it is not quite that easy. Here are the things I have managed to get done already:
- plane tickets: all the way around :)
- US visa: go figure they gave me 10 year visa, last time I visited I got only 2 year one (perhaps one helping fact was that the guy who interviewed me graduated from the same university as me, no idea, it is pretty rare to find a UND alumni in Estonia though)
- Inca Trail booking
- vaccinations: I got a whole deal including hepatitis A and B, yellow fever and typhoid fever
- hotel in Lima and Cuzco (as I want to be able to go straight to the hotel after the long flight and in Cuzco I read that during the festivities time it is quite impossible to get a room)
- bought the hiking shoes
What still needs to get done:
- travel and health insurance
- equipment for the hike: some iodine drops (and gotta learn to use them as well), some medications suggested by the doctor and a smaller back bag
- finish the finances planning as I want to have enough money with me to survive :)
- finish the urgent preparations and research (like check where to call or what to do if all my things get stolen, make a backup plan if something goes totally wrong, make copies of my documents and write down any phone numbers that I might need at the trip and so on and so on)
I won't book any more hotels or reserve any transportation in Peru, will most likely figure it out on the road.
As you can see, I can't wait for the trip. But I just started with the blog since I know I should not leave it to the last minute. I probably won't update much before June, when the trip gets closer.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Introduction
I will be taking a bit longer holiday this summer :)
Dates of the trip
The longest time I could figure out are 5 weeks that are in a row without any responsiblities. There are no longer gaps in year 2007 at all: school till June, one wedding to attend to in July, being the head official on a competition in August and then school in September again. Finally the dates ended up being 12th of June till 19th of July.
Destinations
There were 2 main purposes of my long trip:
1. visiting my 2 best friends in US
2. having some quality vacation in a country I've never been to
First point was easy, second one was a bit more difficult. By then I had decided that I will be going alone. I tried to arrange schedules with friends, just impossible. The ones who have free schedules don't have the finances and so on. So I'll go alone :) What is the worst that can happen :) I'll be fine.
So where should I go to? I was very keen to go to India, but the route did not suite at all. It would mean that I'd go to other side of the world to the west and then coming back the same route and then travelling to the east. So no go with that, Australia and Asia are out for that reason as well. I've been to Thailand so Asia can wait for a bit as well. Africa, well, I'd rather not take that up by myself :) So I had to find something that is "close enough" to US:
- Canada: not interesting and exotic enough
- US: been there done that (although it is a huge country, but still, not interesting enough)
- Mexico: well, not too interested in it, maybe some other time
- Nicaragua and the rest of the Central America: too dangerous to go alone
Then it started to get interesting :) I did some research about Columbia and Ecuador, but somehow it did not look too tempting. Can't even remember why, perhaps the sentence in some web pages that if you don't speak Spanish then there is no point to go there. So I kept looking. Brazil: well I want to go there someday, but this can be done anytime, I want something special :) After asking around a bit, I got it!!! PERU!!! WEHEEE! Somehow everything looked just right about that country. After doing some initial research I found out about the famous Inca Trail. After reading 2 web pages about it I booked the 4 day tour, that was in the beginning of January. So it was all decided. By the end of February I had all the plane tickets bought for the whole trip.
Dates of the trip
The longest time I could figure out are 5 weeks that are in a row without any responsiblities. There are no longer gaps in year 2007 at all: school till June, one wedding to attend to in July, being the head official on a competition in August and then school in September again. Finally the dates ended up being 12th of June till 19th of July.
Destinations
There were 2 main purposes of my long trip:
1. visiting my 2 best friends in US
2. having some quality vacation in a country I've never been to
First point was easy, second one was a bit more difficult. By then I had decided that I will be going alone. I tried to arrange schedules with friends, just impossible. The ones who have free schedules don't have the finances and so on. So I'll go alone :) What is the worst that can happen :) I'll be fine.
So where should I go to? I was very keen to go to India, but the route did not suite at all. It would mean that I'd go to other side of the world to the west and then coming back the same route and then travelling to the east. So no go with that, Australia and Asia are out for that reason as well. I've been to Thailand so Asia can wait for a bit as well. Africa, well, I'd rather not take that up by myself :) So I had to find something that is "close enough" to US:
- Canada: not interesting and exotic enough
- US: been there done that (although it is a huge country, but still, not interesting enough)
- Mexico: well, not too interested in it, maybe some other time
- Nicaragua and the rest of the Central America: too dangerous to go alone
Then it started to get interesting :) I did some research about Columbia and Ecuador, but somehow it did not look too tempting. Can't even remember why, perhaps the sentence in some web pages that if you don't speak Spanish then there is no point to go there. So I kept looking. Brazil: well I want to go there someday, but this can be done anytime, I want something special :) After asking around a bit, I got it!!! PERU!!! WEHEEE! Somehow everything looked just right about that country. After doing some initial research I found out about the famous Inca Trail. After reading 2 web pages about it I booked the 4 day tour, that was in the beginning of January. So it was all decided. By the end of February I had all the plane tickets bought for the whole trip.
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