It's on my list

Susan Sontag

"It's on my list" is something you hear a lot of people say, but how many really have a list and how many uses this as another way of saying that something sounds interesting - but that they usually will never get to it.

One of the first things you learn on how to reach your qoals in any part of life, but still quite few pay attention too, is that visualizing a goal makes it easier to reach. Telling others about your goal makes it harder to break than if keep it to yourself, and just let down yourself. Dividing a goal into smaller pieces makes it easier to reach as you don't have to chew over such a large piece of the pie every time you take a bite. Might also help you savor the taste and get a greater overall experience.


An example that easily comes to mind was back in Angkor - one of the most amazing places in the world - but we even got a bit filled by looking at these spectacular temples day after day. Still one of my favorite places in the world and one I am quite sure I will return to one day.

There are so many saying about travelling and experiencing things, but all are individual. If someone wants to go the same island in every year, stay at the same hotel, eat at the same resturant and go to the same bar and place on the beach, then that's their choice. It's not for me, but for some this is exactly what they want.

Personally I would like to visit at least one country where I haven't been before every year. Quite close to Dailai Lamas famous quote "Once a year, go someplace you've never been before". There are lot of similar translations of the same quote, personally I prefer the "as often as possible" start to the quote. Why set limitations and of course it's not correct to stop exploring the world for almost a year if you've visited a new country in january. You have still reached your goal and can be happy with that, but there's always more out there.

there are lot of very similar translations of the same quote as well

Back to the list. I did write down my list some time ago. My list is however not just fixed entries I absolutely have to do. It's ever expanding, and it's not really something I would like to ever complete. The worst thing would be if there is nothing more I would like to do, but I can't really see that happening. I am also allowed to write down things I've done which were amazing, just to remind myself of them later. After all, my list, my rules.

1 Visit 100 countries
2 Akropolis - Athens, Greece
3 Angkor - Cambodia
4 Swim in a warm lagune - Iceland
5 Swim with dolphins
6 Reach the summit of the highest mountain in Norway
7 Reach the summit of a famous mountain abroad
8 All seven continents
9 See a concentration camp
10 Visit one of the worlds 15 least visited countries
11 Bowl a strike
12 Drink bourbon from North-Korea
13 Christ the Redeemer statue - Brasil
14 Colosseum - Rome
15 A game of cricket (in one of the countries where they actually know how to play)
16 Cruise in the Carribean
17 Disneyland/world
18 Dive in a coralreef
19 Deepsea fishing
20 the Eiffel Tower
21 Go on a rivercruise that lasts some days
22 Go to a game in the worldcup or european championship (football/soccer)
23 Spend a week or more without cellphone or internet
24 Be an extra in a Bollywood-movie
25 Be an extra in a Hollywood-movie
26 Go to a F1 race
27 Parachutjump
28 Fishspa
29 Fly on first class
30 Galapagos Islands
31 Eat gellato in Italy
32 Geysir
33 Giza pyramids
34 Gondol in Venezia
35 Great Barrier Reef
36 Eat a steak in Argentina
37 Go to the bathroom in a "hole in the floor"-toilet
38 Helicopter-ride
39 Hurtigruta (see the norwegian coastline with one of the cruises)
40 Whales (in the sea)
41 Get to an altitude higher than Norways highest point
42 Walk on a glacier
43 Icefishing
44 Jetski
45 Sing karaoke in Japan
46 Karneval in Rio
47 Great wall of China
48 Buy a ticket to a plane without knowing where you're going
49 Drive a car that is worth more than 3x your salary
50 Go to a concert with a world star within classical music
51 Louvre
52 Make dinner for more than 20 persons
53 Hot airballon
54 Machu Pichu
55 Madagaskar
56 Eat streetfood in Bangkok
57 NHL game
58 NBA game
59 NFL game
60 Northern light / southern light
61 Northpole
62 Southpole / Antarctica
63 Charter-vacation
64 Octoberfest - Germany
65 Olympic games
66 Spend a night in a castle
67 Perta - Jordan
68 Pizza in Italy
69 Portwine in Portugal
70 Premier League game
71 Publish a text in a national/interantional paper
72 Publish a picture in a national/interantional paper
73 Camping in Antactica
74 Easter Islands
75 Travel for a month or more (in one trip)
76 Ride an elephant
77 Ride a camel
78 Resturant with 2 or 3 stars in the Michellin guide
79 Drink rum in the Carribean
80 Safari in Africa
81 Drink Sake in Japan
82 Eat sushi in Japan
83 Salar de Uyuni - salt dessert in Bolivia
84 Go to an active vulkano
85 Drink snakeblood
86 Drive a snowscooter
87 Solar eclipse
88 Gamble away money in Las Vegas
89 Spitsbergen
90 Stand-up in USA
91 Beachfootball
92 Bungeejumping
93 Swim in the Atlantic
94 Swim in the Pacific
95 Swim in the southern Icy Sea
96 Taj Mahal
97 Waterski
98 Monstertruck rally
99 Universal Studios
100 British Museum
101 Vatican City
102 Van Gogh museum
103 Vodka in Russia
104 Whiskey in Scotland
105 Trainride for several days
106 Ha Long Bay - Vietnam
107 Cu Chi tunnels - Vietnam
108 Terracotta-army - China
109 Stonehenge - England
110 Mount Fuji - Japan
111 Killing Fields - Cambodia
112 Arashiyama -  bamboo forest outside Kyoto
113 Neuswanstein Castle
114 Grand Canyoon
115 Icehotel
116 Firework festival
117 Bonfire season - Nara 
118 Demilitarized zone between North- and South Korea
119 Giants Causeway

Colonia del Sacramento and the way home

As I wrote in the previous post the plane from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires was delayed by about 5 hours, for me this didn't mean much more than less sleep thankfully.
I got to my hotel about midnight, booked the taxi to the airport for last night and got to sleep as soon as I could - after connecting everything I needed to charge during the night.
Got up the next morning at 6:15, packed, checked out and headed for the port where the boat to Uruguay was docked.
Short queue and no real problems, quite amazing how much you are able to do and get through without really knowing the language. I do know the important words like "frog" and "goat" in spanish, but none of these had been very usefully so far.
The boat wasn't very impressive, it was more or less like a large buss on water, but as it would only take an hour I didn't need anything else than a seat.

Colonia del Sacramento was one of these cozy and lazy, small cities by the sea where life runs slowly and nothing is really important. I was probably still a bit off after the impression overload from  Antarctica and some days of travel without much sleep.
I booked a ticket on a hop on/off buss so i would be able to get to all the places that might hold something interesting and was shipped to the centre of the city. As it was sunday and the breakfast at the hotel hadn't opened when i left, breakfast was a priority.
The meny was in spanish, everyone spoke spanish, and as i didn't want to eat either frog or goat i just picked something that have the word "huevos" (egg) in it, and what i got was ok.

A small walk around the bricklaid streets in the centre led me to some souvenirshops, a church, a small fortress and some local fishers as well as a yatchclub. I later took the bus to the bull-fighting arena which was abandoned a long time ago, but could still be seen from the outside as well as a nice walk around in the neighbourhood area where I actually saw lot of dead frogs on the ground. A bit strange, and haven't figured out why there were so many yet.
At the pier to get back home I got in touch with an english traveller who was also unsure if we were at the right place as everyone else had a different ticket than us.
Back in Buenos Aires we arrived a few minutes later than scheduled, thankfully I'd taken a seat in the boat so I was first one off, and thus first in the taxi-queue.


Back at the hotel at 20mins prior to pick-up, my ride to the airport came in the doors at the same time as I did, so instead of reading some news/mails I just changed quickly and went with him.
Having arrived late last night, I'd not been able to check in on my plane, and thus not being informed that the terminal was A and not C, so I asked to be dropped off at C where KLM has their flights, but soon found out that I had to change terminals.

Back on the ship from Antarctica, we left early in the morning and of course there were some I'd not been able to say goodbye to. One in particular, but here's where fate gave me a nice surprise. At the exact same time as I passed by terminal B on my way to terminal A. A place I really shouldn't have needed to be at all, she came out three steps in front of me, on her way to Terminal A to look for a charging-station for her cellphone.
After checking in my luggage we sat down for some time before it was time to leave for the plane. Having 1hour 40mins to get through security I though I had more than enough time - I was wrong.
About 20-25mins to get through security and then well over an hour for passport control. At the time I was through the screens were already screaming "last call" for me, of course the gate was at the farthest end of the terminal, but as I ran past some others with KLM-stickers on their carry-ons I felt quite sure I would get there in time, and I did. The plane was thankfully just about 20mins delayed, but this meant that my plane for Oslo had already started boarding before I was off the first plane in Amsterdam. A LOT more efficient airport and passport control made it fully doable eventhough I ran most of the way here as well.
Touching down at Gardermoen just about 15 hours after I left Buenos Aires is however quite remarkable, although a bit too close for comfort espessially in BA.

The cold never bothered me anyway

One of Cierva Cove's massive icebergs

For our last day of expeditions we weren't told where we would go the day before, the schedule had always been posted on the main screens the evening before, but not this time. My gut feeling told me we would have one zodiac cruise and one landing, most likely with some gentoo penguins to round it off with our fellows who had been there for us the whole journey.



We got up and had breakfast at 7:30 as usual before the first zodiacs were ready to take us on the, not so surprising, zodiac cruises.
This was mostly to look at icebergs in Cierva Cove, but there were also several whales and of course some penguins around. I was a bit unlucky with the guide for this cruise as I got one that doesn't say much, but she was probably a bit under the weather with the cold half of us had been hit by as well.
One of the other boats actually had a humpback whale swimming towards them, going up for air, then going beneth their boat and then coming up on the other side for air again. Would have been cool, but that's not really something you can plan in advance. And for the record, the argentine navy was still following us....

The day's second stop was a Mikkelson Harbour where there were to everyones surprise gentoo penguins. I was the first one in the zodiacs and on the last boat back to the main ship. There really wasn't anything groundbreaking on this island compared to some of the other stops, but penguins are and will always be cool.
There was also one chinstrap penguin on this island, I suspect him to have been a spy from a close by colony to see it there were some good pebbles there, or the more probable reason - he was just lost.

Icebergs in our way at Spert Island

The surprise trip of the day was that we got a third trip with another zodiac cruise. A lot of people didn't care to go on this as they thought it would be similar to some of the other cruises we've been on - they were horribly mistaken.
We drove around these amazing cliffs, not too different from Ha Long Bay if you picture them as Antarctic, but with massive, rogue, icebergs floating around. Large openings in the mountains we could drive through, lots of birds, and the trip's first fur seal.
An great last trip on maybe the most amazing journey I've even been on.

Mikkelson Harbour and our last footsteps in Antarctica

Weddell seal at Mikkelson Harbour

The emergency lobster suits did as they were
supposed to, so we couldn't stand the heat for too long

We now had about two days and three nights before we would see land again, the first night most were quite tired after a long day. The first day was my birthday, so there was cake and later drinks in the bar. The next day was a bit more difficult, the sea did not behave a nicely as it had done the earlier sea-days and more than half of the passengers just stayed in their room, this included myself who was ok if I lay down on my bed, but not if I started walking around. We did however finally get to squeeze in the lobster-party I had been craving since the first day of travelling.
3rd day we arrived early in the morning, but were screwed by our flight out from Ushuaia being 5 hours delayed. For me this only meant less sleep in Buenos Aires as I had taken an extra day there just in case something like this would happen, as well as not having the time to check-in on my flight home the next day. For lots of others it meant that they missed their connection, but from what I've heard from them later it did work our the next day. Very annoying at the time, but in retroperspective not really anything more.

More penguins, more spectacular views and a very quick bath in the southern icy sea

Pléneau Island

Lemaire Channel, spectacular view

Well, it kind of had to happen. After a few days with a cold brewing where I had been on all  activities, gone camping outdoors etc, it came out in full bloom overnight.
The fact that one of my cabinmates moves the
temperature to the highest temperature all the time as well probably doesn't help either.

An early zodiac cruise around the icebergs at Pléneau Island was what I had to skip, but a few pills and a (maybe not so) healthy appetite for adventure was all I needed to be ready for our trip to Palmer Station. Before that I did get to see the Lemaire Channel with it's spectacular view from the boat, the channel had actually been froozen just a few days earlier, so that was another
nice bonus.

Palmer Station is an american research facility where there are room for 44 persons, usually full in the summerseason and about half during winter. They let on about 10 ships every season, so we were quite lucky to be one of the few choosen few. We took one of them with us on the way back, so that was probably the reason why we were choosen. We were however never told if he was a POW, a deserter or just a guy who was going home.


The facility in itself was partly selfmaintained, but they did of course bring supplies like food and diesel from the mainland.
It was interesting to hear from our guide, the onsite mechanic, that he himself couldn't phantom a life where you had to commute to the same workplace every day and then just get a few weeks off every year, when he now worked for 6 months and then got 6 months off. Personally I couldn't stand having 6 months off every year, usually the two weekend days are enough for me before I feel I need to get back to work and do something.

On Torgersen Island on the other side of the bay of Palmer Station there was an adelie penguin colony, these are smaller and a bit more  agressive than the chinstraps and gentoos we've seen a lot of earlier.
The chicks here was almost fully grown, or maybe not fully grown, but at least enough for the parents to leave them. The parents was clearly making them ready as they pushed them into clusters with the other chicks so they should understand that they should be dependent of each
other and not the parents any more.
The parents will most likely move to sea in a few days leaving the chicks to themselves, they will then wander around without any real clue to what they should be doing, but after a while when they get too hungry they will move to the water. This is usually the same time as the seals will move to the shores to pick off the easiest prays who hasn't understood how this works yet.
In some ways I'm glad I don't get to see that.

Polar Plunge, just do it

Back on the boat we were informed that they would give us the opportunity to do the "polar plunge" later that day. In short this is were you jump off the boat into the freezing water and get back up as fast as you can, mostly to be able to brag that you've done it. For me it was a bad day they'd picked for it as my fever was still lurking, so I did it anyway and have absolutely no regrets that I did it. Woke up the next morning without a voice, but it loosened up untill midday - worth it!


After the plunge there was yet another amazing dinner, the food on the boat was maybe one of the biggest positive surprises, being at sea for 1,5 weeks without any fresh supplies and creating 5-stars dinners day after day is highly impressive. I will however not continue the 5000kcal-a-day diet when I get home.
Desert being topped this day with a chocolate buffet.



At night we were visited by some humpback wahles moving in very close to the ship, one of my fellow travellers took the short movie shown below. Probably better to watch the short clip than whatever I can write about it.

Awesome Adélie Penguin not really ready to swap places with his/her mate after a few days of feeding

Adélie Penguins

Camping in Antarctica and the (in)continental landing

Camping in Antarctica, not something everyone can say they've done

The weather held and the outdoor camping was on.
We were shipped to land on a small island at 21:00 and could start dig our grave to sleep in/on the snow for the night.
I guessed I would be the one with the least experience with camping, but thenagain I might be one with the most experience with snow. I found a nice place close to a small hill and dug about a meter so I would have nice coverage for the wind - which it prooved to be none of.
Most just wandered off and sat down in the middle of the plain, stepped a few times on the ground and placed their gear down. A lot looked a bit confused and didn't seem to know what they were supposed to be doing, kind of like the penguins we'd gotten to know very well these last days.

Finally got the chance to do something other than eating and
going where I was supposed to, so I dug tunnels all over the place

The sunset was beautiful, eventhough it doesn't not really set, it sun just hides behind a mountain for a short while before it returns, it still gave a beautiful view.
More or less as expected I had a hard time sleeping, but managed to steal a few hours of on-and-off sleep.

Next morning we were picked up at 6:30 for a swift return to the ship, an even swifter shower and a tad slower breakfast before the first continental landing at Neko Harbour.

As the greatest surprise of the trip there were gentoo penguins waiting for us on the shore, more nesting close to the beach and even a weddell seal a bit further down the beach.
There was also a small hike up the mountain ridge to a viewpoint were we could get some pictures of ourselves with the Antarctica flag.
Most likely there will be more interesting sights on the islands than on the mainland, but of course to actualy set foot on the continent is an important part of the trip for most of us and now that goal has been reached. For me this means that Oceania is the sole remaining continent to set foot on, and for surprisingly many of us traveling here either Oceania or Africa is still missing to get all seven.

Before every landing there was, of course, an announcement that we should get ready to disembark at 9:00 or whatever time the first zodiacs would leave the mothership. There were also some other announcements, as e.g. dinner, lectures, the store is open etc.
From time to time during these announcements there would magically appear a jar with some strange words, if this was to appear the announcer had to pick a word from the jar and find a way to get it into their announcement. This is why we were told there would be an "incontinental" landing and not the ordinary continental. We did get a bit wet, but I think the worst problems are gone by now.

More Gentoo Penguins

It didn't feel like it was much of a hike when I was there, but the picture kind of proves otherwise

Most made it to the end of our hike at Neko Harbour

Another gentoo colony and the first zodiac cruise

Also here the view was spectacular

Gentoo penguin on the move

Marcella and an apparently sad penguin

The penguin in the background kept falling over time and time
again when walking on the snow

Day three started with a visit to the continents largest nesting area for gentoo penguins - Cuvert Island. These were later in the season than the ones we had seen earlier and there were some very young chick there, we were even lucky enough to see some hatching.
The penguins who were hatching also had to make sure their annoying neighbour wasn't stealing their pebbles for their own spouces nest. There were of course some skuas around as well, but they didn't seem too interested in the penguins so far either. Give it a few weeks and they'll probably be all over the penguin chicks.

The second stop of the day was supposed to be our first real landing on the continent itself and not just the surrounding islands, but the Argentine base denied us access.
The plan was originaly to let off about half of us and have the other half on a "zodiac cruise" were we could go around looking at the amazing scenery in Paradise Bay, being denied access the plan was (of course) changed to having all of us going on this cruise.
With about 100 passengers and 10 on each zodiac there will be some logistics towards it, but Quark is experienced and we barely noticed any problems here either. We were lucky enouogh to land in Damiens boat, very knowledgeable, easy to understand and interesting to listen to.
Paradise Bay is one of these places were it's easy to say that you have to experience it, but this isn't really a place many people would ever be able to visit so I'll give it a shot, but still the pictures would probably say more than my words.
Huge glaciers moving towards the bay with lots of activity, small avalances higher up in the surrounding mountains that were up to 1700 meters high. Some penguins and birds along the cliffs, an elephantseal sleeping on an iceflake in the middle of the bay, the larger icebergs that had earlier been part of the glacier and was now floating around in the bay, and of course the beautiful silence that broken (ir)regulary by an avalance, a bird or some other wildlife sound.
I didn't really know what to expect from the cruises, but the first one was highly enjoyable.

Tonight the plan is to go camping outdoors, if the weather holds.

Laura tastes the iceberg, it tasted like ice

The scenery wasn't too bad here either

A lone weddell seal didn't care much about us and just enjoyed his time on his new found iceflake

The blue eyed shag didn't care about us either, but when the boat slid into
his iceflake he stood up, and after a few more minutes he decided to leave

The size of these glaciers were impressive

First sights of land at Half Moon Island

Spectacular scenery at Half Moon Island

Half Moon Island

Elephant seal and gentoo penguins at Hannah Point

Whaler's Bay

As written our crossing was surprisingly smooth, and we were actually the fist ship who were able to cross the Drake quickly enough to do a landing already on day 2, and what a landing it was.
Half Moon Island being part of the Southern Shetlands was spectacular. The view was great, there were (of course) penguins waiting for us on the beach and more (and more and more...) all over the island.
On this island there were chinstrap penguins who has already had their chicks a few weeks ago.
They were mostly uninterested in us, which is a great sign as they've not been exposed enough to humans to understand that they are dangerous.
About 5 degrees, mostly sun and some skies which really just made the pictures more interesting.
All landings were done by zodiac, as they will be for the entire journey. Quick and efficient way of getting to shore where there are no harbour, which there are none of down here.
In addition to the penguins there were also an elephantseal and a leopardseal having a relaxing day on the beach.

For the morninglanding of day two we got to Hannah Point as this seasons first travelers who were allowed to go on shore.

Action Penguin at Hannah Point

What a wildlife that met us, as always there were some rouge penguins on the beach, but just a few meters up there were thousands who had had their chicks some weeks ago. The chicks were now close to being selfsustained, and they more or less just walking around thinking they were probably supposed to do something, but still really without a clue what they should do or how to do it.
A pack of younger elephantseals were also moulting on the beach, they saw us but as we were not allowed to go to close they really didn't seem to bother much.
The area was also mostly free of snow and there were quite a bit of grass around, so to be Antarctia this must be what they would refer to as lush and fruitfull although all the fruit was still onboard the ship.
The surrounding landscape wasn't as impressive, but the wildlife was spectacular.

Second stop of the day was Whaler's bay on Deception Island, an old whaling station where Norwegians had had their base in the beginning of the century untill it was abandoned and later fought about between the Argentins and British.
A massive beach where there were still remnants of the golden olden whaling days, which in short means some bones of some whales, some rusten parts of some barrels and a few buildings that could fall over if you farted high enough.
We held our flatulence for the visit and left the place as we found it.
The island itself is an active vulkano that had it's last eruption in 1971

Elephantseals moulting at Hannah Point

Chinstrap penguins with chicks at Hannah Point