Christmas and Boxing Day pass in a bit of a blur. We get our first chance to walk on water (oh, ok, it’s fast sea ice – that mean’s it’s stuck to the land rather than floating freely in the ocean – but it’s still water, even if it is frozen!) at Cape Washington, where we have an awesome day with Emperor Penguins and their chicks.
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We get a chance to see round a couple of bases the following day – Mc Murdo and Scott Base – one America and one New Zealand. The contrast in many ways couldn’t be greater – 1200 people spend summer at McMurdo compared to roughly a tenth of that at Scott. Hillary’s hut is a fascinating museum piece which feels very modern compared to Scott’s Discovery Hut at Hut Point by the American McMurdo base. First of all a Ross Seal decides to interrupt our lunch – it’s such a rare sighting that the captain very kindly and adeptly manoevers the boat for the best position at a really close range (for a 400mm lens that is!). To put the rareness of this sighting into perspective – Sue Flood, our expedition photographer, says that in 35 years of working in the Antarctic, her husband (film-maker Doug Allen) has never seen even one Ross Seal, and now we’ve seen two! “We will be starting with Zodiac groups 3,4 and 5. When they get back, it will be groups 6,7 and 8, then 9, 1 and 2. I cannot guarantee that we will After a day spent just offshore from the Falklands taking on fuel for the whole month’s journey we endured the rite of passage now known as the Drake Shake (the Drake Pasage). It’s notorious as one of the roughest crossings on the planet, and on our crossing, gave us Force 9 gales and 6m waves. Sadly, this blew us far enough west off-course to miss the South Shetland Isles. But we discovered a new use for lifejackets – as head padding against the bunk headwall when the ship rolls more than 30deg! This morning’s a very early start – Williams collects us at 0400 for a two hour trip to the El Tatio Geysers, some 100km away down mostly very rough sand and rock roads. The geysers are amazing, well worth the hideously early start and rough bumpy track. But particularly on this trip, there isn’t really [...] The next morning we visit the Fortress of Quitos, in the neighbouring village less than 1km away from San Pedro – where the local peaceful Atacamanean people made their last stand against the invading Spanish in the 15th Century. The valley below is a verdant green oasis – a total contrast to the arid scree [...] Having left Iguazu from the Argentinian side, we have a day of travelling via Buenos Aires to get to Santiago late in the evening. We can’t get any further that day, so we are taken to the Hotel Orly on the far side of town (pre-arranged by the tour co handing our San Pedro trip) [...] Now I fly from Mendoza to Iguazu Falls airport in Argentina – to meet up with my mum who’s joining me for this leg of the trip. It’s a domestic flight, but fortunately they’re friendly about not applying the miniscule 5kg limit of hand luggage on domestic flights today! Sh0rt entry today – nothing much to report other than an amazingly straight road out of San Luis. Looks like the autopista is being extended into Mendoza state, but it’s all full of roadworks at the moment. But they’re well managed and don’t hold me up for long, despite being tens of km long! |
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