Physical Considerations

I am your typical out-of-shape, sports-hating 50 year old.  Thinking of 3.5 months of physically pushing the limits is not exactly appealing to me.  I am counting on my overall stable and good health and my ability to endure.Endurance is quite a factor based on my previous travel experiences.  If you want to save money on hotels, you need to be able to live with less.  That means things like no heat, broken pipes, missing or dirty blankets, prolonged power outages.  So there are a few things one can do to get ready.  Here is one thing I do every morning:  Take a cold shower.  OK – once I am done with the cold one, I add a nice hot one.  But the point is to be able to shower with ice cold water in a room barely over 50 degrees just in case you need to.  One thing I hate more than a cold shower is no shower.  For that purpose, there is “no rinse” shower gel and even shampoo.  But I don’t think it will come to that.  There is usually water.  Just not hot.  For cold nights there is long underwear and a small thermal blanket.  Essential equipment.Endurance also comes in handy in respect to eating habits.  People who need to eat regularly may have a hard time or may have to put food over culture and miss out on things.  I have never had problems eating a nice big breakfast and then lasting without food until dark.  That certainly helps to maximize sight-seeing time and avoids having to track down food in the middle of nowhere.  One anticipated wonderful byproduct of a rustic trip, like the one ahead of me, is that I most likely will lose about 10 pounds.  No complaints about that.My Pakistan experience in 2007 has taught me that I do not respond very kindly to pollution.  I had forgotten that I spent the three weeks of my trip coughing like a wolf day and night; that I had a hard time breathing, and that I returned home completely exhausted and worn out with a full-blown strep throat!  I had forgotten until some of my guide books pointed out the horrific levels of pollution I will be facing, particularly in Teheran.  This is a problem I am not sure how to tackle.  I am lucky I will be traveling in the winter.  Pollution levels in general will be lower than in the summer.  But then, I traveled to Pakistan in the winter,too....  For the first time, I will pack a mask and lots and lots of Ricola, my favorite sugar-free German throat lozenges.  It’s a start.It goes without saying that any trip like this needs a fully stacked medical kit centering around stomach and intestinal challenges…