Homeward bound

Incredibly, I'm sat in departures in Santiago International Airport waiting for a flight to Madrid, Starbucks Grande Cappuccino by my side and my laptop, well on my lap really, checking the hundreds of emails and comments left on my blog.

Thanks so much to everyone that sent me well wishes whilst I was away, it has been so lovely to catch up with them, I will endeavor to respond and thank everyone personally once my feet are back under the desk (metaphorically speaking that is!) Life was so remote on the ice, we had no real idea of what was going on at home, I can't believe Sir Edmund Hillary and Benazir Bhutto have died (well, one of them assassinated!)

We were on tender hooks in Patriot Hills waiting for the weather to clear so the Illusian could land, whilst passing the time with multiple games of cribbage and suduko, several of the teams that had summited Mt. Vison arrived back to also fly out with us. The atmosphere in our poly-tunnel tent was amazing, everyone on a high from their successful expeditions, many completing or just starting their bid for the 7 Summits (climb the highest mountain on each of the 7 continents), sharing food and tales of derring-do.

There was a real mix of true adventurers in the place (myself well and truly excluded!) Ricky De Agrela from South Africa who microlighted around the world in 2003, or Bernice Notenboom, a truly amazing woman, with adventure stories that shadow those of our more prestigious, renowned male explorers. This is a wonderful life, exhilarating in one breath, then nomadic and lonely in the next - but you get to meet the most incredible people, who have broken the mold, taken huge risks and followed their dreams - they are inspiring!

Last night we were out to dinner with our team along with Bernice and John Bourke, a fellow Irish explorer with vast amounts of experience in running and funding expeditions, also Olga Mallo was with us, a Patagonian mountain guide. A great cocktail of characters, whose life stories would captivate you all evening. After a wonderful dinner of local King Crab Chula we went for our ultimate, Pisco Sour (Pisco brandy, lemon juice, sugar, egg whites and bitters) at the Shackleton bar in the centre of town, a fitting place to end our Antarctic celebrations and raise a glass to the 'Endurance'. Sat in the comfy leather club chairs in the wood pannelled bar, walls adorned with watercolours of the heroic era of polar exploration, I could see Shackleton, through my misty, sleep deprived eyes, stood next to me, whipping up a storm of emotion and empathy to organize the rescue mission to save his stranded men still on Elephant Island - cheers Sir Ernest, I hope the ice blocks I carved in your name at your Furthest South (S 88 deg 26 minutes) will stand the test of time.

In Patagonia

The title of this entry pays tribute to the wonderful book 'In Patagonia' by Bruce Chatwin, a great travel book, written in 1975 after a 6 month tour of this corner of South America. Chatwin descibes brilliantly the Patagonian way of life, from dour exciled Welsh miners to gaucho ranchers to American outlaws and Tierra del Fuegan Indians - a stunning read. I read it 17 years ago and have been fascintated with the place ever since, and this is my first visit. I have also been a loyal purchaser of the outdoor clothing, from the US manufacturer; Patagonia, whose logo was inspired by the jagged backdrop of the Patagonian Andes. The founder of the company Yvon Chouinard has also been a constant inspiration to me throughout my career.

We are here in Punta Arenas (the gateway to Chilean Patagonia!) for a week, it is surprisingly cold and very windy. There is a stunning view from the 6th floor bar of our hotel looking out of the Magellan Straights. Not a piece of water I would ever want to navigate, the conditions are benign at the moment and the cruise ships and tankers that I can see from the roof are struggling to maintain any sort of straight course, I cannot imagine what they would be like in stormy weather.

The town has a real wild, last frontier feel to it, gorgeous Spanish Colonial architecture fused with communist grey government buildings – sort of Bonanza meets Milton Keynes. It is claimed to be the most southerly city in the world and with the wind and the cold it certainly feels it.

The thing to do here other than photograph penguins, is to kiss the toe of the Patagonian Indian who is sculpted into the base of the the Ferdinand Magellan statue, I am trying to avoid picking up any germs at the moment so I opted for rubbing it instead – as with all these types of statues, they are meant to bring good luck or everlasting fertility or something.
All our food and equipment has arrived, but as it is a weekend we cannot get access to it until Monday. We will have to hire a truck and a small warehouse to organise all our equipment, the packing of the sledges will take us at least 2 days. So we have some time to recuperate from the long flight and late night last night, as we stayed up late to greet Clare as she arrived at the airport.

On landing yesterday, we saw the huge Russian Ilyusian jet on the runway that will take us and all our equipment onto the Antarctic continent next week, the flight will last about 4.5 hours and is reputed to be very exciting.

Macabre thoughts

Over 30 hours of traveling and we have arrived in Punta Arenas in Chile, I have flown in 3 planes to get here, all of which have had their hair raising moments, not least of which was seeing our luggage on a carousel in Santiago when we were told it was 'through booked' to Punta Arenas, we were lucky to arrive here with all our bags intact.

The approach into Punta Arenas with the strong southerly winds over the Magellan Straights was particularly scary, at one point I thought the wing tip out of my window was going to touch down before the wheels did.

The flight into Santiago, was stunning. The Iberian plane was fitted with a "tail cam" which displayed a live feed of the plane flying on our LCD screens. I could see the rolling foothills of Uruguay and the high Andes in the distance along with the curvature of the earth. I was reminded of the famous story of the crash of Flight 571 where a Uruguayan Rugby team crashed in the Andes on their way to a game in Santiago, Chile in 1972. They were stranded for 72 days in the mountains and ended up having to eat the dead to survive. As we hit some heavy turbulence I looked around the plan to see who I would eat if we were in the same situation, unfortunately the flight was full of scrawny Italians so I don't think I would have fared well.