After completing the 2011 Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race - one of the most challenging and extreme editions of the eco-adventure challenge - a group of lucky staff and volunteers added another adventure to their list: a day trip to Antarctica.
Courtesy of Patagonian airline, Dap Airlines, 20 staff, volunteers and interns from race organiser Nomadas Outdoor Services recently had the opportunity to visit the Chilean and Russian Bases on King George Island (Isla Rey Jorge) at the tip of the Antarctic continent.
After waiting several days for suitable weather conditions, the group set off from the Punta Arenas Airport for the two hour flight over legendary Tierra del Fuego, the unexplored Darwin Range and the southern tip of South America, Cape Horn, to the airstrip at Chile’s Frei Base, on an ice-free area of King George Island.
The views from the plane were extraordinary – the peaks of the Darwin Range, snow-capped mountains, hundreds of kilometres of inhabitable lands, the rough seas of the Drake Passage and glimpses of the ice that makes up 98 per cent of Antarctica.
On what appeared to be an almost perfect day on the earth’s most hostile continent with clear blue skies and sunshine, the group was greeted by strong, chilly winds as they set foot on the rocky ground and began a walking tour of the Frei Base and small Chilean community of Villa Las Estrellas, Russian Bellingshausen Base and Orthodox Church, and small penguin colony located at the shore.
In the distance there were views of surrounding ice glaciers, small peaks covered in snow and ice, small blue lagoons, barren, rocky terrain devoid of vegetation and trees and a wild and windy coastline.
A boat trip to visit a nearby island inhabited by penguins and seals and to get a closer look at a glacier was cancelled as a result of weather conditions offshore, but the group made their own fun by getting up close with the penguins and enjoying Antartica’s first slacklining show, an impromptu performance from American Yogaslackers, Sam and Paul, cameramen on the race’s production crew.
Set against a backdrop of blue seas, penguins, an icy glacier and snow-capped Antarctic mountains, the pairs’ Antarctic performance on a rope they strung between two boats resting on the shore was certainly a special sight to see.
A few hours later on the flight back to Punta Arenas, the group from Nomadas were pinching themselves as they remembered the almost surreal experience - very few people have the chance to visit Antarctica.
Nomadas Outdoor Services would like to thank DAP Airlines for its support and the opportunity to visit a small part of the white continent.
