I have written about my visit to the “Top of the World Store”, and now I get to write about visiting the “End of the World”, which is what the town of Ushuaia in Argentina calls itself (Fin del Mundo).  And beyond the end of the world lies… Antarctica!

I have lobbied to see the seventh continent for a few years now, and after testimonials from friends who have taken that trip, Poldi showed some interest.  It is not natural for her;  she’d rather go someplace warm in the midst of our Minnesota winter, not to an ice-covered land populated by penguins.  But she will sometimes admit regret at not joining me on an aurora viewing tour in northern Sweden because of concern about the subzero temperatures.  It turned out that it was subzero Centigrade, not Fahrenheit, a big difference.

And the same was true in Antarctica.  The weather would feature the summer temperatures of the southern hemisphere, a time when wildlife returns to feed on the rich nutrition of the Southern Ocean.  Seabirds and sea mammals are abundant, the ice is melting, and outlandishly shaped icebergs provide landing zones for them.

It is an expensive trip and I later learned why (keep reading).  And unlike during grade school when I first learned about Antarctica, and when only research scientists could travel there, we now have a choice of tour operators that cater to sufficiently adventurous travelers.  They are not all equivalent however, and we encountered communication difficulties with the first company we approached to book a trip.  Considering it a red flag, we shifted to the group we had had a very positive experience with for our tour of the Baja Peninsula.  Road Scholar is a nonprofit organization that caters to “lifelong learners”, people who would rather listen to a lecture than go shopping at the tourist malls.  Perhaps it is not surprising that their clientele skew older (mostly above 50).  This is ok with us, and in fact, this self-selected demographic fits us just fine.

Their prices were higher, but having had one positive experience with them, and considering the overall uncertainty of this particular tour destination, we signed up.  We were not disappointed.  They were responsive to all of our questions and accommodating to our schedule (we had travel days of our own before and after their itinerary).  They took care of us throughout.

I will be making a few travelogue-type blog posts about this trip and offer a few photos. I hope you enjoy them.