Join Me on a Trip to Antarctica
and please send good vibes for my survival
And so the Antarctic & Galapagos Adventure Begins.
It’s 11am in sunny Santiago as I sit writing this in my room on the 16th floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, looking across a skyline of modern buildings out to the Andes Mountains.
the view from our window in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Santiago
This is our third day in Santiago where we’ve come to join a group of travellers enroute to the Antarctic on a Silverseas expedition cruise.
Santiago is a pleasant city, a patchwork of buildings and parks, tree-lined streets and intriguing sculptures. Our first night was spent in the Providencia district, a commercial area with a similar vibe to Newtown in Sydney: quiet cobbled roadways intersecting the larger roads and housing trendy bars and restaurants. The people we pass are young and casually dressed in jeans and tee shirts largely in the white-grey-black palette. Some congregate in parks, reclining on picnic rugs to talk and smoke while others are clearly part of the hustle common to most large cities.
Our hotel there was Hotel Le Rive, a cute boutique hotel tucked away in one of the aforementioned streets, covered in ivy and looking particularly Parisian. Highly recommended if you’re ever in the area.
Le Hotel Reve, Providencia in Santiago
Santiago is the capital of Chile and one third of the country’s population lives here. It’s home to Costanera Gran Torre, 300 metre tall monolith, the tallest building in South America, and surrounded by a ring of sparsely vegetated mountains. The city surprisingly green given the barren landscape around its perimeter, the plethora of trees and generous parklands giving it a relaxed ambience despite the hectic traffic (side note: I thought I may die in the taxi ride from the airport when the driver seemed determined to overtake every car and zip constantly between lanes).
Also, churros …
couldn’t resist the churros :)
And the local beer …
cheers!
Both delicious!!
It’s hot— around 30 degrees— but being far from the coast it’s a dry heat rather than humid. Perfect for on foot exploring. Apart from the cable car to the top of San Cristobal (which we’ll do on our return trip) there’s not a lot of tourist attractions in the city itself. But we haven’t come for the sightseeing …
amazing sculptures in this riverside park
We’re here to join a Silverseas Expedition Cruise to Antarctica. Not a sentence I ever thought I’d be typing! It’s an opportunity that arose late last year and something my other half, John, has always wanted to tick off his bucket list. Me? Not so much. While I enjoy travelling—and have done a lot in my time— these days I’m happy to be at home with my family, dogs and horses, so doing my first ever cruise which involves flying in a charter plane to the southern most place on earth (I hate flying) and hopping on a boat that will traverse one of the roughest sections of ocean in the world, where the Atlantic, Pacific and Southern oceans meet (I can’t swim), is certainly pushing me out of my comfort zone.
I’m smiling now but …?
The Drake Passage is the waterway in question, commonly known as either the Drake Lake or the Drake Shake to those who dare to make the crossing. I’m crossing everything we get the former rather than the possible 8 metre waves the confluence of these three oceans can sometimes (often?) create. I’ve never been on a cruise and have no idea if I get seasick which makes this even more daunting, as does the fact that I’m a crap swimmer. I do come armed with highly recommended seasick tablets and plan on throwing a couple back the minute I step onboard. As well as locating the nearest life raft.
All that said, the prospect of reaching the calm, pristine waters of Antarctica, seeing the icebergs, seals, penguins and whales in their natural habitat is going some way towards curbing my inclination to hyperventilate.
route and onshore excursions
We’ll be onboard the Silver Wind for 12 nights and taking almost daily excursions in zodiac boats onto the ice. Will I be kayaking or doing the polar plunge? Probably not … I’m already way out of my comfort zone and have been having night terrors about being tipped out of the kayak (or even the inflatable zodiac) and mauled by a killer whale.
Almost as unnerving is the prospect of mingling with the 238 other passengers. I’m hopeless at small talk with strangers and generally feel at a loss as to what to say. Maybe being on the cruise together will provide some common ground, and there’s always my Leo husband who can more than hold his own when it comes to a chin wag. If not I can always feign seasickness and hide in my cabin with a book or a workshop.
loving the Cece Lyra workshop on Interiority and Psychological Acuity :)
So, please send good vibes into the universe for me and watch this space. We board the charter flight at 3pm and take our first steps onto the boat around 7.30pm tonight before sailing off into the darkness on the calm seas I’ll be manifesting as I throw back my pills.
Hopefully I’ll report in tomorrow with an account of crossing the Drake Lake. Wish me luck!
Thanks for reading my first entry in the Antartica and Galapagos Blog Series. I’m hoping to check in each day with pics and images and would love to hear your thoughts. You can also follow along via my Substack Newsletter, Only Connect here