Epic Adventure - Antarctica!!!

I'm alive... I'm alive!!

Oops, been a bit MIA these last couple of months. Sorry about that! I'll try and do a sha-bang catch-up on things. My last blog I re-capped via pictures my BIG winter trip back home, to Colorado, to Argentina, and Antarctica.

Antarctica was a big enough adventure in itself that I didn't go into detail in my  last blog. I think the best way to "talk" about it is through pictures, as my friend recently did with a BIG trip to Carnval in Brazil (you know who you are!!). BUT I do have to say that Antarctica was truly an EPIC adventure, one of the BEST in my life. 1st it was the comfort of being back on the same ship that I went to the Arctic Circle with and having some of the same staff, I went through G Adventures (gadventures.com). Then it was meeting people from all over the world (although there were many many Australians) and sharing travel and life stories. There were 120 or so people on the ship and I although I made some friends, I tried to get around and meet other people. Well, one dinner I sat at a table with all 65+ year old people (mind you, although I was fearful of this before I went on, about 1/3 ship was people in the 20's and 30's, another 1/3 40's-50's, and the rest over 60.... a good mix. I thought it was going to be like 90% over 80 years old. Phew!). So one person was asking us who has been to all the great oceans in the world and then came the debate about what counts.... SEEING the Ocean, swimming in it, putting your toe in?? I think I have been to 4/5, but again, what counts? Then to basically keep the conversation going, I randomly asked the table "how many countries have you been to?" Ohhhhh boy, did that start a commotion! There was this one particularly high-pitched British lady that almost had a heart attack with this... we didn't even get our meal and she wanted to run to the big map in the common area to count them. THEN she kept on going around (rather loudly) saying, "Ellen and I are having a competition of how many countries we have been to!" Uhh... what? All I was asked was a simple question to make conversation! Well, being that she was 72, she had a slight advantage over me. I had lost my tally of country counting, but she counted 68 and I counted 58, which I was fairly pleased with... and Antarctica was both our 7th continent.

Anyhoo, at the end of the trip, all of us were asking ourselves how we would describe our trip to other people, and you really can't. YOU JUST HAVE TO GO!!!! It was really really surreal.... the beauty, the crispness and clarity of everything, the wildlife. There is nothing like having cute little penguins running around your feet and tripping over themselves, ha ha. When we had sunny days, ohhh my gawd, might as well be in heaven. Hearing the ice burgs crackle, the reflections of the mountains on the water. AMAZING! Truly. I couldn't get over the fresh air.... just breathing it made one feel rejuvenated and ALIVE! People kept asking me to compare it to the Arctic, usually people have preferences, and I really couldn't decide. The Arctic was more nature ... Antarctica had more wildlife, similarities in the nature (ice burgs, but in Antarctica everything was much more BIG and VAST! Truly epic, 360 panoramic glaciers, mountains, and it was more exciting to come across whales, penguins, seals, etc. What was even more amazing is that there is like 22 hours of daylight, the sun would set around 11pm to midnight and rise again at like 2 am. Lucky me I have my eye mask - don't travel anywhere without it!!!

I feel truly fortunate and lucky to have experienced the Antarctica and also to learn about things like the great exploration of the big race to get to the south pole (Roald Amundson and Robert Scott) and of course biology and life of the wildlife we were seeing. Especially the penguins, soo impressive what they go through (please watch "March of the Penguins" with Morgan Freedman narrating). We saw the penguins when they were protecting their eggs... they usually hatch around March and I was there in December. It was cool watching them through the process of collecting stones around their little nest to protect their eggs and also when they would battle against other penguins that were trying to steal their penguins, too too funny.

So below are a few of 23049823048230483204239 pictures I took! I'm in the process of making an online album... but at this pace, it won't be ready till 2014 (haha), BUT if you are interested in seeing it, email me and when I'm done I can email you the link (I'm making a photobook).