It's when I travel that I feel most in the hands of God. Today I'm embarking on the longest physical journey of my life. In the next 26 hours I will travel 6,500 miles from Philadelphia, PA to Ushuaia, Argentina on the island of Tierra del Fuego.
I'm on my way to the Antarctic Peninsula. Why Antarctica? It's a place I've always want to visit since I saw the series "The Last Place on Earth" which recounted the race between Amundsen and Scott to be the first humans to the South Pole. Their story was full of hardship and deprivation, victory and the cruelest form of defeat. I appreciated their thirst for adventure and I wanted to see what they saw even it's in the form a comfort-filled expedition on a modern cruise ship.
The trip to Ushuaia consisted of three flights: Philadelphia to Atlanta (2.25 hrs.), Atlanta to Buenos Aires (10 hrs.), Buenos Aires to Ushuaia (3.5 hrs.). When I arrived in Buenos Aires it was morning and I had to wait three hours between flights. I was surprised how warm it was as I walked between terminal buildings. I sunned myself outside the domestic terminal because the terminal lobby was small and noisy.
I had a window seat on the flight to the city that calls itself the southernmost city in the world. As we approached the island I could see distinct waterways that separated the small but rugged mountains that filled the many small islands. These mountains were sporadically covered with snow as if they were decorated by a confectioner. The plane passed directly over the airport which looked like a field strip for small aircraft. But then the plane circled and dropped altitude and I realized that the small strip (Malvinas Argentinas International Airport) was our destination. In a minute we had landed at Ushuaia, my port of call for Antarctica.
I'm on my way to the Antarctic Peninsula. Why Antarctica? It's a place I've always want to visit since I saw the series "The Last Place on Earth" which recounted the race between Amundsen and Scott to be the first humans to the South Pole. Their story was full of hardship and deprivation, victory and the cruelest form of defeat. I appreciated their thirst for adventure and I wanted to see what they saw even it's in the form a comfort-filled expedition on a modern cruise ship.
The trip to Ushuaia consisted of three flights: Philadelphia to Atlanta (2.25 hrs.), Atlanta to Buenos Aires (10 hrs.), Buenos Aires to Ushuaia (3.5 hrs.). When I arrived in Buenos Aires it was morning and I had to wait three hours between flights. I was surprised how warm it was as I walked between terminal buildings. I sunned myself outside the domestic terminal because the terminal lobby was small and noisy.
I had a window seat on the flight to the city that calls itself the southernmost city in the world. As we approached the island I could see distinct waterways that separated the small but rugged mountains that filled the many small islands. These mountains were sporadically covered with snow as if they were decorated by a confectioner. The plane passed directly over the airport which looked like a field strip for small aircraft. But then the plane circled and dropped altitude and I realized that the small strip (Malvinas Argentinas International Airport) was our destination. In a minute we had landed at Ushuaia, my port of call for Antarctica.
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5 comments:
Vaya con dios; how is the weather
vaya con dios
...mountains sprinkled with snow as if decorated by a confectioner.
nice writing. if this is the effect that travel has on you, perhaps you should do it more often.
Dear umberto,
umberto,
I plan to write another essay that is an extended analogy between Antarctica and higher mathematics. But since this is the busy season, I don't know when I will do this.
bob
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