And so the journey begins....

Ok flights, me and South America just don´t mix. The flight out of La Paz was fine, we were meant to have a short stop over in Santa Cruz and then on our merry way to Lima in Peru. Got to Santa Cruz and there is where we stayed for the next 3 plus hours in the middle of the night. Occupied a bit of flooring and that is where we stayed waiting. The flight was delayed because another flight was delayed getting to Santa Cruz, so they stopped about 4 flights from leaving till they arrived. Mind you they didn´t tell this to anyone. Loving the transport in South America.

Finally arrived in Lima, had a few hours kip and then back on another flight down to Ushuaia. This was a marathon of a flight, From Lima to Santiago (where we transferred from the international to the domestic lounge and got stung for a reciporicy tax of US$30, yanks have to pay US$100. Sucks to be them!)

Wednesday met up with the ship to dump luggage and board. Started heading out that night and sometime during the night we hit the Drake Passage. Not many people surfaced that day. It was pretty rough only made worse by the fact we are on a tiny ship, only 75 metres long and 14 metres wide. Feel like a cork in a washing maching. All day Thursday and a good park of Friday was spent trying to get use to the rocking and swaying of the ship.

Friday afternoon, we sited our first iceberg. I was expecting the first iceberg to be small but it was massive! The weather at the moment is overcast with a bit of dizzle, but nothing can dampen the spirts of everyone up on the top deck, especially now that the sea is calm.

In the afternoon we arrive at Elephant Island at Cape Wild in the afternoon. This is the place where Shackleton left some of his men for 4 and 1/2 months in a bid to try and get help by reachinng South Georgia. When we went out in the Zodiacs to get a closer look, it was very rough. Getting on was very interesting, as I was getting on the zodiac a swell came up I ended up mid thigh in water. Happy to report that the rain gear held up very well! Didn't take any photos as it was way too rough and rainy. I couldn't imagine having to live here on a narrow piece of land for any ammount of time. The only flat piece of land was the bit they lived on the rest is just rocky mountains. Even the beach where they lived was rocky.
Getting back out of the Zodiacs proved to be a more difficult than getting on. It took ages to get all of us out of the boat. The lady that disembarked before me almost took an unexpected swim. As she was stepping onto the platform the swell gave way and she ended up on her belly on the platform, legs dangling over the edge in mid air with the swell coming back in quickly. Considering the swell she wasn't going to be dry for long. The able seaman that were helping us on and off are extermely fit and nimble. As this lady took the dive, one of the two that were in the boat with us jumped over the lady from the zodiac and onto the platform where 2 other able seamen were trying to hold her up from falling in. Within minutes she was back right and heading up the stairs, I was next! Lucky for me it wasn't as eventful, but I did do a cat leap across to platform to make sure I made it.
We had a Captain's dinner that night as a welcome to Antarctica, we looked a treat in our backpacking clothes. Needless to say we didn't get an invitation to dine with the Captain. But a good 80% of passangers were just happy to be able to hold down a meal and weren´t concerned about the way they looked.

Saturday: We pushed our way through pack ice today, that was amazing! Really feels like we are in Antarctica now. A couple of stubbon seals didn't like being distrubed and refused for awhile to get off the ice that we were plowing through. We won!
Landed on Antractica! It was on the Antractic Sound at Brown Bluff. Heaps of seals and penguins to look at, huge mountains and plenty of snow, some of which crashed down the mountain while we were there. Apparently there wasn't any snow there when they were there last trip.
Second landing was at Esperanza Base. It is an Argentinian base with some military personel working there, with families, they even have a school there.
The sun has decided to come out and play. Fantastic weather to be zooming around the icebergs. The base was alright, the ride back was better, we went through the ice and had a good look at a few ice bergs up close. "Harvested" some glacier ice from the sea to have with drinks that night. Our Zodiac driver Chris very kindly bought us a round of drinks to have with our ice.

Sunday: First landing today was at Half Moon Island. I was quick off the mark this morning and signed us all up for a zodiac tour around the bay before landing. We got to see a Leopard Seal sunning itself on an ice flow. You generally don't get to see them that often and that close, so we were lucky. The island wasn't that interesting, heaps of penguins and seals starting to get a little penguined and sealed out, the penguins are cool, the seals are cool when they are doing something other then just lieing there sunning themselves looking like rocks. The zodiac tours are only run for 10 people, there is a limit of how many people can land at one time and there are 10 too many on the boat, so they do a tour of the area and then land, by this time some people have already gone back to the ship, and we can land. You get the best of both worlds then.

The second landing was at Deception Island. Again I was quick off the mark and got on the zodiac cruise, too bad for anyone else that actually wants to do these, they will just have to be quicker than me, mind you I do put 6 names down when I get to the list. Deception Island is an active volcanoe, it exploded back in the early 70's. The centre of the volcanoe is the bay where the ship was anchored. We did another zodiac cruise where we found a couple of beaches full of fur seals, they played the boat for the entire time we cruise the shoreline. It was neat seeing them swim around and show off. I didn't end up going on shore it was getting pretty cold by then, and there was an only an old whaling station to look at. The area we cruised was called Whaler's Bay, can you guess why? We were happy enough to cut the tour short as we were going to get another outing that evening anyway, this time to swim.
The swim was at Pendulum Cove, they had a record number of people take the plunge. Because of the wind the water wasn't that warm, it was pretty damn cold once the pool/dam they built broke. If you weren't the first in then it was just freezing. I was one of the first! Brave me! The beach is heated by the geothermic activity in the area and as the waves crash in it heats up the water. Unfortunately for us the wind was blowing the other way, and the water was on the cold side, but it was a must to do and everyone that didn´t I am sure they are regetting not getting in.

Monday: Today we headed out to Juogla Point near a British base, Port Lockroy. It was a lovely day, great for photos. We are having the best luck with the weather, even the expedition leader hasn´t seen this good a weather and he has been doing it for over 25 years!One of the ladies, Jen, her and I went photo mad that day, the area was fantastic, huge mountains, the seven sisters, glaciers, wild life and the base. It was just beautiful. As we sitting on the waterfront a Leopard seal started to eat a penguin. They are very efficient killing machines, they skin the penguin first completely, it looks like a skinned chicken you would get in the shop. We headed over to base where there were heaps of penguins losing their fluffy feathers. From the base you could send postcards, of course I ended up sending a few, they get a stamp to say that they were actually sent from there. Pretty cool really, they will reach there destinations in 15 days to 6 weeks, depends when the next boat comes by.

After there we had lunch on the back deck of the ship as we cruised the Lemare Channel. I had a very quick lunch before bolting upstairs to take more photos. We have had such luck with the weather, it has been calm and sunny for most of it.

The afternoon outing was in Iceberg Alley. Everyone loves an interesting looking piece of ice. Just as we headed out into the thick of the icebergs, one calved not too far from us causing a huge set of waves come crashing through and around us, at that moment everyone in the boat that didn't have a brain or surrival instincts stood up to 'get a better look' And at that precise moment the engine on the zodiac cut out. Murphy was with us on that trip. Lucky there was enough ice in the water to absorb the energy from the waves otherwise we probably would have been taking an unscheduled swim There were a couple of icebergs that calved around us but they were a little further away. Calving is where the face or large chunk of the iceberg comes away and falls into the sea. It lets off one hell of a crack and then the splash and obvious waves. Our poor zodiac driver was only learning to drive so he was a little paniced when it happened.

Tuesday: We didn't to do any landings today. The weather turned bad, there was 60-70 knot winds, rain, hail and snow! They tried at 3 locations and all of it was bad. I felt sorry for the poor guys that had to out in the weather to have a look. It was windy, cold and raining/hailing, they returned absolutely drenched.

Wednesday: We started cross the drake passage again. Back to the rough sea. Most people were sick and remained in their rooms, very few people at meal times.

Thursday: We arrived safe and sound back in the Port of Ushuaia in the early evening and our adventure South is over. Very sad.

Met some terrific people on board and we are all planning on returning in 5 years time. Have to go back it is too amazing not to return. So I highly recommend every start saving, this is a trip you can´t afford to miss!

Well off to Rio for a few days before hitting Europe.

Well the Bolivian trip got off to a false start. Arrived at the airport at some un-goddly time in the morning only to discover the carrier we were on was on strike and had been for 10 days. So much for the confirmation that our flights were good to go All wasn´t lost, the carrier put us up for 2 nights in the Sheraton, 4 stars, a slight up grade from the roach infested place we spent the night before. After a flurry of emails/phone calls we were able to, eventually, get in touch with our next tour to tell that we were indeed coming, just going to be a day late.
Second attempt at leaving was much more successful. And we managed to clear customs in Boliva in record time and make the connecting flight with the tour group.
Arrived in Sucre, the capital of chocolate for Bolivia, only discovered this fact the day before we were due to leave, but managed to get a bit of shopping in Very nice.

It was a bit of a shock the obvious level of povety. The people on the streets asking for handouts was a little staggering, we knew that Bolivia was poorer than Peru but wasn´t quite prepared for it. Sucre is actually a really pretty town, the parks/gardens are lovely.

From Sucre we headed to Potosa. The main reason for visiting this town is to have a look at the Silver mine and the conditions that they work in. It is horredous! On arrival at the mine it was suggested to buy the miners a gift for visiting the mine, you had the opportunity to buy crackers, cocoa leaves, alcohol or dynamite with ammonium nitrate, yes you can just buy sticks of this stuff and hand it out, it blew my mind! Considering the strict rules and regs in other parts of the world in regards to handling this type of material. The mines are just a rabbit warren of tunnels heading in all directions following the mineral lines. The guys that work in the mines only live for 10 to 20 years. Not the best life to live.

From Potosa we headed to Uyuni, this town has to be up there with the uglyest towns around! The only redeeming feature was a great pizza joint called Minute Man Pizza. This town was the staging point for our trip out to the salt lakes. Unfortunately there had been huge storms it was flooded out, we were only able to get a little ways out before turning back, but we did end up doing a great tour of the desert and lagoons in the area. The landscape around there was pretty cool completely different to anything that I had seen in Peru. The altitude did play havic on a few people on the tour, plenty of which had many sleepless nights. After 4 days of roughing it in the desert, we had seen our fair share of lagoons and flamingos to last us awhile. We headed back to Uyuni to catch the overnight train back to La Paz. The train was meant to depart at midnight and in true South American style it didn´t arrive till 2am and didn´t depart till 3am. For the 2 hours that we were at the train station we ended up setting up a make shift camp out of the luggage from the other people on the tour that had decided to head back to the hotel to wait. The luggage as a wind break and a couple of sleeping bags it was very cozy. And I guess entertaining to the locals.

Once back in La Paz the carnival was going to begin the day we were due to leave, we headed down to have a look before catching an evening flight out. The first day was for the children all of them dressed up in costum armed with water ballons, water pistols and shaving cream. As you can imagine a couple of white chicks walking around made for an easy target! Needless to say we got absolutely soaked through. It was great fun all the same. It would have to be the highlight of the trip.

Now for a marathon of flights to get Argentina to catch the next trip to Antarctica!