Penguins. What is there to say about them? They are cute and they are fluffy and they swim and according Warner Brothers they sing and dance. Now as much as I enjoyed Happy Feet that's not quite what they are all about. I think one word can sum them up. And that word is "guano". As soon as you approach a colony you smell it. It's rank like rotten fish and half the time they look like they've been doing their best to get as much of it on themselves as is penguinly possible. Then they don't look so cute. And I definitely wouldn't want to pick one up and take it home. But they DO have their cute sides. if they've just been swimming and haven't been near the guano yet they are clean. And ... read more

So the morning of the 27th dawned with two exciting expectations: 1. Crossing the Antarctic Circle and 2. Our first landing at Detaille Island. This was the day(s) we'd all been waiting for. Originally most of us expected to be going to the South Shetland Islands first and doing the Antarctic Circle crossing right at the end of our trip as that's what the trip detail stated. I don't think anyone was disappointed that we were doing things "backwards". It was never confirmed exactly why we did it backwards, but I think it was because our ship had made a commitment to collect some personell who had spent 5 weeks restoring an old research station on Detaille Island. Since we also had to drop most of them off at Port Lock Roy later in our trip ... read more

From Puerto Natales to Ushuaia. What is there to say? It wasn't a pleasant day. The bus seats were fine for most of the day BUT it was a long day and to make life more interesting I was not feeling well. I had a slight tummy bug... nothing too bad but since my antibiotics were under the buse there wasn't anything I could do about it! The day consisted of bus to a random intersection in the middle of nowhere to be picked up by another bus. I was kinda happy with getting off that first bus though cos the... conductor or "hostie" or whatever was this deaf guy who kept using basic signing to tell me I was pretty and that he earns lots of money and that we should get married and have ... read more

Wow, just looking at this now and I'm way behind. I guess that's what happens when I'm having so much fun. Anyways... I guess I should mention my day spent in El Calafate checking out Perito Moreno Glacier (I think the fact that I keep thinking of it as Perito MERINO says something about my Aussie-ness). This was a much more sedate day in comparison to my full day. The hike wasn't a hike. It was a walk. But before we went for the walk we went for a nice little boat ride. 50 pesos for 1.5 hours to go look at the glacier up close and hopefully see some calvings etc. I wasn't going to pay the moeny since I didn't have it, but Albert knew I wanted to and so he paid for me. ... read more

The drive from my hotel in Buenos Aires I saw lots of dogs... not quite sure what I was expecting but I definitely wasn't expecting so many dogs. There was one lady who was walking about 6 dogs all at the same time. It was a long wait at the airport since I got there around 10:20 and my flight wasn't until 13:00 but that was fine. I just sat and read and drank my first cerveza of the trip. I guess I kinda cheated though I got Stella since I knew I'd like it. Only $5 for Stella and that was airport prices. Not too bad I don't think. Stupidly I chose not to eat since I thought they'd give us something on the plane. But I don't think you could really call what they ... read more