Expedition to Antarctica comes to an end

February 26th, 2011: Back from a 10 days expedition to Antarctica I can’t possibly write at a level to help you experience what I saw all the way down here by the means of binary computer code in which you are now fixating on.

Of course I saw a multitude of penguin nudist colonies, crackling ice, treacherous penis shrinking water and was even fortunate enough to see the cartoon, “Happy Feet” which screened one night on the way back to human civilization. Obviously there was also a variety of birds, seals, sea whales and land whales in which miraculously through evolution are now able to walk on land with an extreme likeliness to humans. From weaving between icebergs, decrepit pale walking human corpses, living and dead hollowed out penguins, birds and sea lions…there were all memorable experiences for me to see.

The ship was not filled with the human colony of grey hairs in which I originally expected. Minus those few walking corpses, a lot of the people were rather young with many of them supporting much more head hair than me – whether it is natural or has pubic or back origin, I don’t know. Remember that my definition of “young” is fluid, in which is now...44 years old with an error margin of 5 + years with an upward trend the older I get. Of coarse there are exceptions to this definition, but this is just a general rule of “piggy that went to the market” – aka: your big toe.

My time on the boat when not on land, ice or in a Zodiac was filled with a variety of lectures in which I struggled to not sleep through and even worse…facially leak through - but was somewhat inevitable due to little hours of sleep and from the peaceful – at times extreme, rocking of the boat.

Being fed to the point of worrying about some potentially vicious self imposed stretch marks, I successfully packed down loads of amazing food, doubled up on desserts and heavily worked at attempting to empty three bottomless cookie jars that were available from 12:00am to 11:59pm. Toward the end of the trip I came to the conclusion that I will never be able to embark any sort of boat for a trip around the world without unintentionally creating job security for the medical industry that specializes in premature obesity.

Late nights of high school level discussions drawing out tears of laughter was something in which I didn’t expect from this expedition but truly enjoyed as my maturity dropped me to an age that I am unwilling to disclose.

Now that I am back on land, unable to go any farther south since it has already been done, I need to begin to make my way north. It is not that north is the only direction to go…I can think of two other directions…west and east. But for now heading north is my only option since my sister will be getting married in the next few weeks. I will be taking a 3.5 month break from traveling in South America and will be traveling around the US and Canada visiting family, old and new friends that I met along the way.

Returning to Buenos Aires in Argentina at the end of June, my South American journey will continue…but to where? This I don’t know…but starting March 4th, my North American journey will begin.

Temporary loss of an appendage in Antarctica

February 18th, 2011: Don’t know what got into me…perhaps, pure stupidity. For someone who would rather swim in a hot steamy outhouse in a pool of fecal matter before swimming in a cold river – today I voluntarily placed myself into perhaps the coldest body of water that I have ever been in, leaping into an icy bay with some goliath sized ice cubes. Originally organizing a group of individuals to join me in my stupidity to help me from backing out, all of them changed their minds when it was time to prepare for our infiltration into the water. A poor leader I must be, failing to lead my troops into a funnel of stupidity…so I did it alone.

Taking off from a dead start I began brainlessly running till the water was deep enough for a full frontal dive completely submerging myself, feeling as if I might have gone into a brief state of shock. Spinning around I did a mini-back float…and if my memory stands correctly, I added a mini-flutter kick for some style points before dashing to the edge of the water on the way out, getting a photo of myself holding a piece of ice as I stood there in my 2 year Jockey’s - thank god that they are naturally black (if they were white, I guess I would then be telling you about my chocolate-vanilla swirl Jockey’s – NOT a good visual). The camera toting individuals on the shore were surely admiring my pastiness, while amusingly noting how my appendage managed to mirror a turtle as I exited the water.

While catching the next Zodiac back to the ships conveniently placed sauna…my body performed a major workout attempting to keep warm as I convulsed in crack addict fashion – exhausted upon my arrival to the ship.

I still can’t believe I’m in Antarctica. I have not planned it, but I just realized today that I have officially explored all 7 continents. Not a goal I was striving for so it didn’t feel like a huge accomplishment but I did it never the less - so…what’s next?

*Please note that I uploaded a multitude of photos of this trip in my...Antarctica photo album.

Saving a Chinaman’s life with fishlike eyes

February 18th, 2011: Waking up this morning I thought I was going to do a lot of things in Antarctica but one of them was not saving an old Chinaman’s life. Did I really save his life? – well, let me say that I saved him from some great discomfort and perhaps some broken bones perhaps limiting himself from some late night action with his 70 year old wife in his suite on our ship.

Clearly Mr. Chinaman was walking up a snowy trail to a summit that he obviously shouldn’t have been on. Telling by his drunken walk of exhaustion, swaying left and right I was waiting for the obvious fall off the side...in which the right side of the trail was a steep angled slop supporting a high number of incalculable degrees with some rocks patiently awaiting a visitor.

Tipping over, he went to the right going face first with his $3,450.89 Canon camera necklace. My brain conveniently slowed time as he began a slow motion penguin slide on his man boobs down the slope. Quickly I lunged forward off the trail grabbing his toe of his boat with my pencil like fingers that somehow locked as if my hands morphed into the strength of pitbull’s jaw. His eyes became bigger than his oversized circular glasses as he looked at me in a panic.

As a scene from a poorly written action movie starring Keanu Reeves, I calmly said, “I got you buddy” to the old Chinaman. He tried to curl up to me with the abs that he lost some 40 year ago. As I managed to switch my grip to his frail forearm, I felt someone else grabbing my ankle to keep me from doing a head slide down the slope with the Chinaman.

Today, I was a hero to the Chinaman with big fishlike eyes as he graciously thanked me, when I should have been thanking him for a little bit of unexpected excitement for the day.