Antarctic Afterglow

Back to Buenos Aires

After a nice Argentine dinner with my new friends from my Antarctica expedition, I jumped on a plane to Buenos Aires yesterday. The flight was originally supposed to leave at 830pm. Unfortunately, it left a little closer to 3:30Am in the morning. I arrived back in Buenos Aires at around 6am this morning, with no hostel reservation, no hotel reservation, and working on 3 hours of sleep from the previous night. We had a pretty big night on the last night of the expedition.

After walking around Buenos Aires with my backpack for an hour and a half, I finally booked a room in a small hotel. I crashed out for 10 hours. It is the best sleep I have had in a long, long time. Actually, this should work out as an advantage as I’m now on true Buenos Aires time: Wake up at 4:30pm, have dinner at 11:30, go to the club at 2:30 in the morning, return home at 7am, etc.

Antarctic Afterglow

I am still on cloud nine from the Antarctic trip. I do not have any idea how in the hell I am going to post everything that happened. I have 20 pages of notes. What an amazing experience. I also met such incredible people.

Here is a quick preview of my Antarctica experience:

> 1 Historian that lived in Antarctica in the early 1960s dog sledding for the British government to survey parts of Antarctica.

> 1 leopard seal ripping a penguin to shreds. (caught on video)

> 1 tremendous glacier calving that caused a tsunami effect on an Antarctic beach (caught on video)

> 1 old weird Greek guy that got wiped out by the tsunami. He was unhurt. (unfortunately not caught on video)

> 20,000 penguins

> 2000 football fields full of penguin shit (Penguins poop a lot)

> 10 nights of cocktails on an expedition ship with marine biologists, a glaciologist, and zodiac drivers from around the world.

> 1 amazing Brazilian couple, Regis and Carol that are putting me and my friend John Wynn up in their house on the tropical island of Florianapolis in a few weeks. (profile coming)

> 1 Antarctic gorgeous Sunset

> 1 Chinese roommate that projectile vomited on my floor

> 1 Russian Ship Officer that unsuccessfully tried to sleep with 5 different women on the boat within the first 4 hours of the voyage.

> (1) 80 year old lady that tried to attack birds of prey that eat baby penguins

> 1 Antarctic Wedding

> 25 whales of 4 different species

> 25 times where there were whale sitings and we raced to the deck and did not see a damn thing

> 12,000 Icebergs

> 1000 Wandering Albatross

> 1 Hungarian ornithologist with a porn star mustache that has been to 108 countries and 7 continents.

> 150 seals of 5 different species

> 1 time where I was charged by a fur seal.

> 53 people on the Russian Crew

> 1 miserable Cruise ship Bartender

> 4 days on the roughest seas in the world

> 60 passengers that needed to visit the ship doctors

> 1 day where we crossed the Antarctic Circle

> 1 abandoned British naval base from 1953

> 15 compelling hour long lectures

> 1 Extreme Polar Plunge

> 1 million things I am never going to get the time to write about

> 4 posts in the next few days to get this experience properly blogged.

> Number 1 ranking. This 10 days made up the best trip of my entire life.

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Notes:

> Last week daveforddoesearth received over 500 unique visits from 25 different US states, and 5 different countries. I am blown away. I am convinced that if can get 999,500 more per week I can continue to travel professionally. Please continue to spread the word and thank you. :) I am hearing consistently from people that I have n0t heard from for years and people who I do not know. It is really cool.

> I am hoping to get day one completed by tomorrow. Wish me luck.

> I am considering changing my itinerary to stay in South America longer. There is too much that I still want to see. The Galapagos, Columbia, and Bolivia are on the top of my list. Post a comment if you have ever been and have any info on any of these places. I’m looking for insight on Columbia especially due to the tremendous amount of positive feedback I have received about it from other travelers.

> The photo credits above goes to my new Egyptian friends Osama and Noha. I hope it gives you an idea of how close we got to the wildlife.

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