One of the most common questions I get asked about my travels is “What was Antarctica like?!” And so voila! We have blog post #3.
Antarctica is literally like nowhere else I’ve ever been to. A land truly untouched by man (if you ignore the research stations) and also one of the harshest environments, but at the same time one of the calmest. It’s one of the places where very few colors exist and yet, was one of the most vibrant places I’ve been. I’ve been obsessed with Antarctica ever since I did a little elementary school project on it. At the time, the only way you could get there was if you had a research permit. Traveling for leisure wasn’t really a thing.
So when I heard that my university was organizing an alumni trip there, I immediately hopped on the opportunity. The school’s geologist and marine biologist would be attending as well as a historian, professional photographer, and an ornithologist (person who studies birds). I wanted this experience to be more than just going down South and seeing some ice and wildlife – I wanted to learn more about the continent. What did we know about it? Why haven’t we inhabited it? How is global warming effecting it?
The school did everything for us. They partnered with Abercrombie & Kent who arranges the 10-day cruise departing from Ushuaia, Argentina through the dreaded Drake Passage to the Northern Peninsula of Antarctica and back. And when I say the school did everything for us, I mean Abercrombie & Kent. I’ve never felt more prepared for a trip in my life. But I’ve traveled so much and I know better – no plan ever goes the way you want. And this trip was scheduled for December 2021, we’re still right in the middle of the pandemic. Questions like:
- Will I get COVID in Buenos Aires right before boarding?
- How do I get into Argentina?
- Who’s arranging transportation for me since I’m arriving early and leaving later than the scheduled dates?
- What kind of motion sickness medication should I bring?
- Will I get motion sickness? – I’ve never been on a cruise before
- How many layers do I actually need for warmth?
All were flowing through my mind before the trip. Luckily, I had no issues and tested negative the whole way through and was able to board the ship that first day.
But before I boarded the ship, I began my journey with a week in Buenos Aires ahead of the tour group. I love exploring on my own and wanted to get a flavor for the city without the tour guide herding us around with their stick and flag (iykyk).
01.
Buenos Aires & Iguazu Falls
I started my journey by taking a local city tour to get the lay of the land. I wanted to learn about the various neighborhoods and the history of the city. This is usually how I like to start my solo trips. It always gives me good perspective of where I’m at and I meet people right off the bat, plus get a lot of local recommendations on where to go for food and shopping! One thing that I’ve noticed with influencers is while it’s nice to turn to social media for references, when you actually show up there, lines are long, reservations are usually required, and most of the time the food or the place just isn’t worth the hype. I prefer to ask locals directly where they like to go eat and what they like to do. 9 times out of 10, it’s still places that influencers don’t know about and are incredible finds!
The following days I toured the Tigre River Delta and even did a day trip to Iguazu Falls. Yup. You read that right, I woke up early in the morning, flew from Buenos Aires to the Argentina/Brazil border to see the famous Iguazu Falls and then flew back in the same day. Cause why not?
After exploring on my own for a week, it was time to meet up with the tour group. We stayed in Buenos Aires for two days before taking our own charter plane down to Ushuaia, Argentina. When you take a cruise to Antarctica, you’re likely leaving from here or Puerto Williams, Chile. The flight down to Ushuaia was early in the morning, so that we could have lunch at a ski resort to give time for the cruise staff to load our luggage onto the boat. We ate lunch, toured the city, went for a short hike and then it was finally time to board the ship and set sail for the Drake Passage!
02.
The Dreaded Drake
I don’t know if it’s actually called this, but I’m calling it this. The Drake Passage is the body of water separating the bottom of South America and the top of Antarctica. It’s infamous for it’s rough conditions, but apparently when we went through it on December 12, 2021, it was some of the calmest waters our Captain has ever seen, with 40 ft. waves! Needless to say, I got the answer to two of my questions. Yes – I do get seasick and No – I did not bring the appropriate medication with me.
It takes 2 full days to make it through the Passage one-way. The itinerary was 2 days through the passage, 5 days bouncing around the Northern Peninsula, then 2 days back up to Ushuaia to take our flight immediately back to Buenos Aires.
This was the first iceberg we saw in the Drake Passage on Day 2 after seeing absolutely nothing but pure ocean.
Through endurance we conquer.
Ernest H. Shackleton
If you do not know who Ernest Shackleton is – educate yourself. I had no idea until this trip and man did I feel small after learning about him and his endeavors with Antarctica. It is truly shocking what we do not learn in our education system in the U.S. and I wish this is one of the things we learned more about. But I pulled from Shackleton’s inspiration to keep going past the seasickness because what lay ahead of me was indescribable.
03.
Antarctica
We finally made it through and the waters were as still as a statue. You’d never know that we’d just gone through what felt like a 48 hour roller coaster. Now there are a couple of rules for cruises going down to Antarctica, they cannot have more than 200 passengers on board. The particular cruise that I was on did not camp on the continent, nor did the polar plunge (though I wish it did). We went out in small groups twice a day. You were assigned a color upon embarkation. Each day, we were given a daily schedule of what we were doing and where we were going. You saw what time your group was scheduled to go out in the morning and in the afternoon. This allowed you to plan for when to get breakfast and lunch and when you needed to be in your gear.
One of the times you went out was usually a zodiac tour through the icebergs and the other was an actual trek on the continent.
While one of my days was cut short due to one of the ship’s staff needing an emergency med-evac, I’ll end with a few highlights from this trip:
- Seeing and hearing an iceberg completely flip over in the ocean
- Seeing and hearing a glacier break off into the ocean to become an iceberg
- Participating in a wedding at Half Moon Island surrounded by penguins and whale bones
- Having an NIU alumni reunion on the ship
- Seeing the Palmer Research Station (couldn’t get off the ship)
- Seeing so many penguins
- Experiencing a pod of humpback whales follow us out of Antarctica into the Drake Passage on the last day
- Hearing the ice “fizz”
- Seeing a different shade of blue I’ve never seen before
- Learning that we might have a cure for skin cancer from the marine biology of Antarctica
- Learning about the explorers of Antarctica
- and literally so many more!
