Landing #5: Palmer Station- American Antarctic Research Station

It was weird being around other Americans other than our group. We learned a little about how research is done in Antarctica. The U.S. has three stations in Antarctica: including being the only one to have the station at the South Pole.

Two annoying things about America in Antarctica are:
1. The U.S. has the South Pole station, not Norway or Scotland who were the first ones to discover it. When asked why this was the presenter said it was for “political reasons”. Sounds dirty to me.
2. The Palmer Station empties their human waste into the water outside their station! They’re the scientists that are supposed to be conserving and preserving Antarctica! Not throwing their shit in the ocean! I’m just so confused!

Still, it was cool to be able to walk around the station and see what it was like. And they made us brownies! It was super lucky we made it there in back in the zodiacs because on the way there our motor broke down and the way back we were almost trapped in by ice!

Landing #6: Lockroy

Lockroy used to be a British whaling station (booo) but the British still own it, restored it, and turned it into a museum of sorts. Which is really weird to go to a museum that’s just hanging out in the middle of nowhere Antarctica. You have to take a zodiac to get there!  Such an interesting place.

Lots of whale bones. This place had a whole skeleton!

Another fun happening this day was whale watching on the bridge and seeing seals float by on an iceburg. I ran on to the deck and waved “goodbye” to them and one of them picked up its tail and waved it at me! It was the COOLEST!!!

Landing #3: Hydurga Rocks

Saw our third penguin species: the Chinstrap penguins!

Also had our first close encounters with seals!

I like getting right down on the same level as the animals so I usually come back covered in poop. It’s so worth it though! At this landing there were a lot of mom’s nesting with chicks too. Almost too cute to handle.

I should also note how much I love riding in the zodiacs. The drivers have been doing this for a long time and like to show off. Hence coming back from Hydruga Rocks my driver and another zodiac that was going back had a race and ours drove DIRECTLY to the front of the boat and turned at the very last second. I couldn’t help grab on for dear life. It was exhilarating!

Landing #4: Culverville Island

Fortunately no relationship to the popular home of the butterburger “Culvers”. This landing was more of the Antarctica that we were expecting: snowy! We hiked up a huge hill which had a good view that was a little difficult to see due to fog. But it was still fun because there was a big snowfield up there and a Gentoo colony.  I think it was here that I perfected my Gentoo call. Also, there were whale bones all over the place! They kind of look like driftwood but were super heavy.

Some of the lads in our group made their first Antarctic snowman.

We all were soaked because of the heavy wet snow, but before we went back the zodiac showed us some cool glaciers around the island. My pictures look a little grainy because of the snow, but you can see how beautiful they are!

We rarely know what to expect at the landings, but after while it didn’t matter because we found out how awesome each one is. I always try to be on the first zodiac to leave and the last one to come back!

Landing #1: Our first time off the boat! We got bundled up, put on our life vests, rubber boots, stepped in some sanitizing chemicals (to make sure we don’t bring any foreign substances from our boots to land), hopped in the zodiac rafts and off we went! The island was home to over 150,000 Adelie penguins. As far as interacting with the wildlife, they threw us in there immediately! At each landing we usually had about 3 hours to explore. The penguins there have no reason to be afraid of humans so if you sit down on the ground they’ll come right up to you and peck your boots! They are such curious little creatures with so much personality. They’re so much like little people and I could watch them for hours!

Getting from the boat to the zodiac which takes us to land.

Before heading back to the ship for lunch, our zodiac driver took us on a little iceburg tour around the island. I wasn’t expecting to love iceburgs so much! They are the most brilliant shade of blue underwater! They’re in such unique shapes and it’s fun seeing the animals hang out on them.

Landing  2: Brown’s Bluff
Our first landing on the actual continent of Antarctica! This landing had a different kind of penguin (Gentoo) and we also climbed up this ridge to see the rare Snowy Petrel! It’s a bird that I was really hoping to see and we found one nesting in a cave!

We also went on our first Antarctic swim! Our whole group ran in together and it actually wasn’t that bad! It was pretty cool having glaciers in the water and penguins running in and out of the water right besides us too!

It was such a perfect first day in Antarctica! In the evenings we have dinner at 7:30 and then usually have class which is always a good part of the day. We have some very meaningful discussions.

Also, I realize some of you may have been worried about the earthquake that happened in the Southern Ocean as we were crossing it. But worry not! I didn’t even know about it until we got back to land. I am starting to see a theme of earthquakes happening close to where I’m studying away for J-term though. (i.e. the Haiti earthquake happening when I was in Tobago two years ago.)

The first portion of our Antarctic adventure begins with the infamous Drake Passage. Since all the world’s oceans empty at the south, the Southern Ocean just kind of churns around Antarctica. Sometimes it’s pretty calm: the Drake Lake. Other times it destroys people: the Drake Shake.

We boarded our ship, the Ushuaia, at about 4pm and we had a champagne toast as we embarked. It was so exciting to be on board after months and months of waiting. It was also fun because all the other passengers seem really cool and are from all over the world. Including one woman who has been to EVERY country and Antarctica is the only place left she has to go!

Our ship is that little blue and white one in front of the mammoth cruise ship. It’s 300 feet long (football field) and has room for about 80 passengers.

Our lovely cabin.

The crew and expedition guides are all hilarious. And they feed us a lot of good food- including vegetarian options. For the first time since leaving the U.S. I feel like I’m actually getting proper nutrition!

During our days at sea there is tons to do. They have presentations about different animals and parts of Antarctica, movie showings, games, in addition to the homework we have to do for class. I had on the lifesaving seasickness patch and felt pretty good most of the way there, unlike some people who couldn’t get out of bed or eat. It’s funny because during Drake Passage crossings the staff tapes up barf bags everywhere.

I have never experienced anything like living on this ship. It’s like living in a washing machine. I love motion things like rollercoasters and turbulence, but living in it is completely different. It’s such a weird experience to be literally thrown to the other side of the room without warning. We all look drunk walking and falling on someone or getting fallen on is a normal occurrence. Walking in a straight line is a joke and getting dressed takes about 15 minutes. During the 2.5 days crossing the kitchen doesn’t use glassware or serve soup, for obvious reasons. My favorite part is going up stairs! I don’t know how the physics of it works exactly, but as the boat sways when going up stairs you either:

1. Have to use all your strength to pull yourself up against the G-forces
or
2. Experience something close to weightlessness and get floated up the steps.

It’s so weird and literally gravity defying! And as long as you aren’t feeling nauseous, it’s pretty fun!

Another super weird part of the Drake Passage has been the side effects of the seasickness patches. Now, I’ve put my body through a lot of crazy situations while traveling. I thought my malaria medication “vivid dreams” was bad, but I think seasickness patches one-uped it by changing my vision. I have always had perfect eyesight but the patches have made me far sighted. This was a terrifying realization and now I can empathize with glasses wearers. I felt super old having to hold our class readings at arms length to be able to read them. Even so, I guess it’s better than puking my guts out in bed all day!

One of my favorite ship past times is bird and whale watching. The bridge is open for passengers all day and it’s always nice to bring my binoculars and check things out. It’s the thrill of the search! The seabirds are awesome too! Like, I don’t know if you know about albatrosses, but you should! They don’t go to land for years! They just use the ocean wind to glide around seamlessly. It’s extraordinary. It’s amazing how us humans are completely dependent on this little boat of ours to survive out here, and even so, people are still getting sick, while the seabirds thrive here naturally. As I will continue to learn over the course of our trip, we simply do not belong here.

Seeing the first glimpse of Antarctica was sublime. We all ran out onto the deck and were so giddy. We made it through the Drake Passage! We made it to ANTARCTICA!

We’ve been able to explore a lot since it does not get dark until about 11 pm. I thought that would weird me out and be disorienting, but I actually really like it! You can do so much!

Part of our town wanderings included visiting the maritime museum which was in the old prison. It was part a muesum about the ships that explored this area, but also party a museum about the prison, which I guess was like the Alcatraz of Argentina. It was random, a little creepy, and pretty cool.

We had an extremely fun night two days ago because it was one of our group members 21st birthday. To celebrate we went out to a club which we later found out was gay bar! Then we went to another bar which was so packed you couldn’t even move in it. There was lots of dancing and inside jokes that were created that night. It was definitely a group bonding experience, and I’ll leave it on that very censored note!

The next morning came very early but it was worth it because we went hiking in Tierra del Fuego National Park! The landscape was a mix of water, mountains, and meadows. Sound of Music-ish. It was our first day since we left that we weren’t on an airplane and it felt so good to be in nature moving around! We went on one hike, then got our passports stamped at this cool little post office.

(I really don’t know why my vertical pictures are uploading sideways! Sorry about making you have to turn your head! I’ll try to figure it out for the next post…)

After that we went to the park visitor’s center and hiked to a spot by the river to have lunch. From there we continued on another hike to the end of the Pan-American highway! This is the highway that runs from Alaska, all the way to where we are in Tierra del Fuego! Before we went back into town we stopped at a beautiful lake that Argentina shares with Chile.

Those mountains are Chile. A few of us ran in for a quick swim but it was very brief because it was frigid! But it woke me up! So it was all good!

(Remember you can click on any picture to make it bigger!)

Me and my friend Alexis are making a video blog of our time here! We’re having A LOT of fun making them, so we hope people check them out! Here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/user/LasLocasJourney/feed

You guys! I’m going to Antarctica TODAY! I’ll be gone for the next 10-11 days and wifi on the ship is $3 a minute. So I doubt I’ll use it at all, but I might cough it up for just enough time to put up another post while we’re there! Did you know as of a few years ago if you a filled up a football stadium that it would hold more people than the amount of people who have EVER been to Antarctica?! Man, I feel so lucky I could burst. And I’m just so excited!

I got my parka, I got my camera, and I got my (as always) sense of adventure. Let’s go!

I’ve never been so immediately in love with a city like I have been with Buenos Aires. I’m just smitten here!
They call it the “Paris of the South” and I can totally see why! It kind of feels European. Only warmer, not just in the temperature sense, but the people too. Everyone is so eclectic! There’s music and street performers all over the streets. I remember times in Paris when I’d try using my French and the waiter or hotel staff or whoever would get frustrated and start speaking in English. In Buenos Aires when I try using the approximately 3 Spanish phrases I know they laugh (in a friendly “that was cute, nice try” way) and help me through it. People in Paris wear black. People in the Paris of the South wear every color you can imagine.

THIS IS MY FIRST TIME IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE! It feels so good to be here!

One challenge that I detect being in Argentina is being a vegetarian. Argentinean food is meat. I haven’t seen fruit since being here! It’s all good though! India spoiled me so it’s time to pay my dues as a vegetarian traveller.

Speaking of India, I find myself constantly comparing Argentina to India since it’s my first time traveling since then. The first observation being that it is about the same temperature right now (super hot), but in India we had to wear long pants, long shirts with sleeves, and SCARVES. Buenos Aires is skin exposure friendly so that’s been really nice! Also, Argentines are varied in their appearance, so I could pass off as one. This was simply impossible in India which made being stared at a daily occurrence. It’s nice to blend in more here!

This morning we had a painfully early flight to the very bottom of South America. It is outrageously beautiful here and we’re gearing up to hop on a boat and sail away to the “the white continent”! I’ll hopefully put up another post about our time in this mountainous port city tomorrow before I become internet-less for the week.

I hope everything is well “up there”! I’m sending you some sun from a place where it doesn’t set until 11 pm!

If you are reading this blog to join in on my adventure this month to Argentina and Antarctica- welcome! If you were a regular blog reader of mine- thanks for sticking around! Approximately one week after I declared a blogging break I was already missing it! Unfortunately a busy fall semester prevented me from getting back in the game. Not blogging made me realize how much I like it! I found myself doing something new and exciting and thinking about how I would describe the experience to other people. I’ve been lucky to be able to do some pretty cool things and I want to share all about them!

So I figure what better way to start back in with
1. The New Year!
2. Traveling!

I leave tomorrow and will head to Buenos Aires, Argentina by way of L.A. and Lima, Peru. Then after one day in the capital of Argentina I will fly down to Ushuaia- the southern most tip of South America and spend two days there before boarding a ship to sail to Antarctica for about 11 days! On the way back I will be spending more time in Patagonia (the rugged southern regions of Argentina and Chile), and finally revisiting Buenos Aires before heading back to the states. It will definitely be a whirlwind of a month!

I’m going as part of a January term class at PLU called “Journey to the End of the Earth”. Technically it’s a writing class in which we focus on natural history and conversation issues. I will be making a short film while there about the human impact on wildlife in Antarctica. I’ll be going with a professor and 18 other students and we’ll be able to see lots of animals and amazing landscapes. I’m particularly excited for crossing the Drake Passage- known as the roughest seas in the world! Ahoy mateys! Hopefully getting my sea legs is a quick process.

I feel sooooooooooo lucky to be able to go to Antarctica because it’s a place not many people get the opportunity to visit. After this I will only need two more continents (Africa and Australia) before I have been to them all! I am absolutely giddy about being able to travel again and will try to blog as much as I can! My internet access is TBD, and I definitely won’t be able to blog while at sea/ Antarctica, but I’ll try to make up for it!

I was planning on doing a little semester re-cap on what you missed during my blogging hiatus, but I think I will save that for after I return. There is too much packing to do tonight (all those warm clothes I got for Christmas) and I’m just so focused on the awesome adventure that I’m about to go on.

See you in the Southern Hemisphere!

In particular, my weekend trip up north to visit my friend Jimmy in Duluth! The drive up took about 3 hours but didn’t seem so long thanks to my friend Rachel! I’ve only been to Duluth once and that was just for an afternoon passing through on the way to a family vacation in Lutsen. I remember thinking how much it reminded me of Tacoma though, and I still felt that way this time! Kind of industrial, on the water, big boats, etc. It was nice! After greeting Jimmy and making an awesome lunch we packed all of our bikes into the car and drove down to the waterfront for a bike ride. It was a little cramped in the back…  The weather was awesome and we probably rode about 13 (?) miles. It was a great way to see Duluth! At one point I felt really bad because I think I ruined someone’s wedding video…let me explain. So we were on the bike path and there was a wedding along the waterfront that the path went right by. As we came upon it the bride and groom were just pronounced man and wife and were walking down the aisle together to some sappy cliche song. The videographer and photographer going crazy documenting it all. Now, the  trouble is that this wedding was kind of in a little valley along the path so we had two options:
1. Keep going, driving through the shot of their wedding video.
2. Stop.
Given the options, it may seem obvious to stop. But the trouble lies in that my brakes suck. So I left it up to Jimmy and Rachel to decide what to do and they both started braking. I followed suit but unfortunately as we neared the happy couple my bike brakes let out a loud, resounding,”SSSSSSSSSSCCREEEEEECCHHHHHHHHHHHHH”. For about ten seconds there was a serious nails-on-the-chalkboard effect. The wedding guests turned and stared at me and I wanted to hide behind a tree. It was kind of embarrassing and I felt so bad! The only thing that gave me solace was that the newlyweds seemed to wrapped up in their marital bliss to pay attention to my much needed bike repair.

Phew. So we got out of there, and quick. But had to stop a little further on for a rock skipping break! Lake Superior is awesome. It almost makes up for the fact that I can’t skip rocks. So the plan for that night was to go camping and Jimmy’s friend had recommended a place that we go about 15 minutes outside of Duluth. So we get all of our gear and go to the destination and start to hike in. This is real camping! None of that campsite business. So we follow a small dirt trail for about a half hour and decide we should cross the river, as advised. There’s no bridge though, we just had to wade through the river, which was very difficult because we were carrying everything we had and the rocks were slippery. This would also be our downfall because the tent bag had a hole in it and the tent poles fell out in the river so we threw all of our things onto a rock in the middle of the river and went in after them. Thinking we had them all, we made it across and decided it would be a good spot to make camp.

It didn’t take us long to realize that HALF of the tent poles were missing. So we snapped to in trying to figure out how we could assemble a shelter under our limited condition. Oh, and did I mention it was dark at this point? And that we only had one, small flashlight. And that it had begun to rain. Which was nicely complimented by the THUNDER AND LIGHTNING in the distance. Things got pretty intense really fast! In the 3o or so minutes that it took to figure out a tent we were all wet and dirty. I think I went into survival mode a little. The only thing I was thinking about was getting that tent up!

We finally used the one tent pole we had to make an arch which we leaned up between two trees and spread the tarp over it. So what was a very spacious 6 person tent turned into a little 5X6 dry spot in the middle of the forest during a thunderstorm. It was a bonding experience and with two such great friends it really turned out to be alright! It is nothing short of a miracle that we stayed dry. It was definitely the most adventurous night of my summer, and 100 times scarier than skydiving.

One of the best parts was at about 1 am the ran stopped and we went out to the river and climbed over the rocks and explored the little pools by moonlight. I would go into detail but I know I could never do it justice and I would just spoil it all! But it was seriously beautiful. I can’t even describe how it felt!

The miracle tent! Most of our food was un-eatable because it got wet and crumbled or needed the fire we never got to make. And since we had to hastily prop our tent up on the two closed trees we slept on a floor of stumps and rocks. AND because it rained so much the river that we crossed the day before was now flooded.

So. Hm….

We did what we had to! We packed up our things, tied it to our backs, and walked up the river to try to find a more narrow/ shallow place to wade back across. Even the best place we found ended up being tricky and we lost a few things to the river, but luckily nothing too expendable. We really had to rely on each other to get across and we ended up being about waist deep. It was a really trying situation! When we reached the other side we found the little dirt path again but it looked like a road paved with gold to me! Much to my disbelief the night before, we had made it back to civilization!

I don’t even remember the last time I was that dirty. The whole experience brought me back to India, that’s how intense it was. It’s weird though because so much turned disastrous, it was still really fun and exciting and we all had a really good time!

After re-cooping we did some more exploring of the city of Duluth.

It continued to be a great day and we met up with a friend from Farmington. Later that night we drove across the lift bridge to the pensulia on the other side and had a bonfire on the beach! It was really cool! There weren’t any fire pits or anything, you just had to collect driftwood and then you could make a fire anywhere and we were the only ones there. It was a beautiful night again and the waves were crashing on the beach and the Duluth skyline was all lit up. And under such conditions it only seemed fitting to go for a moon light swim! It all just felt perfect!

The next day we had an awesome breakfast at Uncle Loui’s, a Duluth delicacy, and went to the top hill of Duluth and saw the awesome view. It was a great way to end the weekend. Saying goodbye was super emotional though. I’ve been ready to go back to school for a while, but after such a good weekend it made me feel really sad to have to say goodbye to Minnesota and the people it contains.

It was a great last hoorah of the summer with great friends. What more can you ask for?

Meh with moments of sheer awesome. Including a visit from my PLU friend Caitlyn!

We went river tubing, had a picnic at the sculpture garden, arm wrestled, got $100 worth of ride points for FREE at Nickelodeon Universe in the Mall of America, ate lots of good food including homemade ice cream and waffles cones, and enjoyed the many great places of St. Paul. Like this children’s book store that had live animals roaming about!

I’ve also been interning with an organization called Kids Against Hunger which has volunteers package food and then ships it all around the world to places with strong need. The majority of meals right now are going to Haiti. With the hard core famine going on in Somalia everyone is trying to get food into the county but it’s difficult because of the political unrest that is keeping out all the food that people are trying to send. It’s a pretty messy situation and kids are dying like crazy, but people are trying hard to help and things are slowly getting better. Food is also being shipped to refugee camps in Kenya that Somalis are walking to to try to escape. It’s interesting to be at a place that is so involved in the current events. Mostly I lead volunteer groups as they package food. You can check out the website here!

http://www.kidsagainsthunger.org/

I’m off to Duluth for the weekend! Kind of a last big event before I head back to school in a week and a half!

Take care!