The actual journey

As I write this, we are an hour away from Lima. Before the cloud cover took over, all I could see from the plane window was a sea of dark green forest beneath me, broken only by winding rivers. It has not quite dawned on me, that we will soon be in South America. I suppose we already, just 10,000m above her ground. Soon, we will be there. After all the planning, all the research and reading, I still cannot imagine what awaits us. 

The journey to get here has been long. And I don't mean the twelve hour flight. It was about a year ago when I started talking about this trip, reading and planning. The flights were booked about months ago. From there, our travel calendar slowly got filled. 

People always say that the planning is half the fun. And indeed it was. I spent many joyful moments staring at my purchased for purpose map. Selecting the places we wanted to go has not been easy. There is so much to do, even limiting ourselves to the three countries we chose right at the beginning: Peru, Bolivia and Chile. I say "we" but I must confess I was stubbornly persuasive on that point. When people say, "what? You're not going to Argentina or Brazil?", I want to point them to a map of South America. 

My starting point was Santiago, as in, I knew I wanted to go to Santiago. Whether we start or end there, was for me wurscht,irrelevant. It's still a bit too cold at this time of the year for Patagonia, so we had to settle for the northern part of Chile. By that time, we're close enough to Machu Picchu not to make a stop and so that very quickly because our boundaries: Peru to Chile. I wanted to travel overland as much as possible, so including Bolivia because a natural option because of the easy land crossings from Lake Titicaca to La Paz. 

The decision was made easier by my fixation for one of our legs to be a train journey. Inspired by Paul Theoreax, I remembered how much I love train journeys. Coming across the Andean Explorer journey from Cusco (where we would be for Machu Picchu anyway) to Puno (on Lake Titicaca), anchored a lot of our plans. The train journey was one of the first things we booked. And seeing as the train only goes every Wednesday, we had to plan everything else around it. It meant we had a week and a half to fill before the train and so we managed to fit in a short trip to the Amazon basin, something we had not anticipated we'd be able to do. 

Anyway, in that way, the travel calendar got filled. We still have most days of the last leg in Chile unplanned. We have a vague idea of what we'll do but nothing is booked.

Before that though, there were many other things that needed to be sorted out: visas, vaccinations. Oh, and not to forget the budget and the packing! 

Visas

Only one of us needed a visa for only one of the countries we are visiting, and that's me for Bolivia. Applying and getting the visa was everything but straight forward. It took months to clarify what was expected and the online form which had to be filled out wasn't the clearest either. The embassy advices applicants to contact the embassy to make sure that the information online is complete and correct or if additional documents is required before sending in originals by post. They said that would ensure that the application is processed faster. Fair enough, except it too them a few weeks to respond to me when I did. And considering that the online form is only valid 14 days from the date submitted, it meant I had to go through the whole process all over again. 

Then there was the business with the photo. They asked for a photo which was 3x3cm in size, and a digital copy of max 150 MB. The first photo of 150 MB I sent was "too small", and I was asked to please send another one that is "bigger". I never really understood what exactly she meant. Because I next sent another photo with the exact same specs and that was accepted. I also sent in an actual 3x3cm photo with the application by post. 3x3cm is really tiny. I have never known any embassy to require such a tiny photo. Even the people at the photo studio where I got the photos taken were surprised. But that was what was stated and confirmed to me on the phone, so fine. Being sceptical, I send it another regular passport-sized photo which I had as well. In the end, that's what they took and the tiny one was returned to me. 

Vaccinations 

We got a whole battery of vaccinations before the trip. There is a Vaccination Service in Sweden that is dedicated to well, providing vaccination services as the name suggests. So we made our way there after work one day to ask about what vaccinations we needed. I had read up in advance on what was required. I knew we needed a yellow fever vaccination because that was required to enter Bolivia. Other than that, everything else was optional. And the options were wide. After research, I had a better idea of what we would want but thought we should at least talk to the experts first before making a decision. 

After a short wait, we were sat before the nurse. It was all a bit overwhelming. We decided on about 6 vaccinations and they all had very specific instructions as to when they should be taken, number of doses and duration between doses and minimum or maximum duration before expeted exposure, etc., etc. And I must say, the nurse who attended to us was nothing short of exemplary. Professional and capable. She listened to our plans, looked up a few things on her risk profile for the different countries and before we knew it, we found ourselves walking out of there with a plaster on each arm and armed with a specific and detailed schedule of when we needed to be back for which other jabs, a prescription for oral vaccines and instructions for when and how they should be taken, and we needed to be back to pick up our prescription for malaria tablets! 

In the end, we got vaccinations for yellow fever, hepatitis A&B, typhoid, tetanus, cholera and malaria tablets. Not related to vaccinations, but I also got extra medication in case of asthma attacks at high altitude. 

Currency

I have become one of those travellers who never has local currency with me when I set off. I usually withdraw cash from an ATM when I am there and I assume that I can pay for most stuff with a card. Except when I went to Moscow, there I decided that I was going to spend only cash as far as possible. For their trip as well, I realised that we were going to have cash with us. There were places where we were told we would struggle to find an ATM, one of the towns we are going to, according to the guide books, has only 2 ATMs and they do not always work or have enough money in them. So we needed some cash. 

That was again a lesson for us. First we had to find out what the currency of the three countries are! And I still haven't got the hang of the different exchange rates and I have absolutely no clue what any amount of money can buy you. 

Anyway, we have now arrived and spent our first night in the hotel. So far it reminds me a lot of Asia. Everything is a bit chaotic, especially the traffic. Above ground power lines which we are not used to seeing anymore in Sweden, clothes hanging out on balconies and windows, and construction everywhere. 

The most notably thing for me though, is the air. It does not smell too bad, not like walking down Sukhumvit under the sky train boxing in the fumes of the traffic and the smells from the drains. But it is noticeably heavy and unclean. Still, we are on the coast. So I'm looking forward to getting to the sea!