The Dream trip

I can't believe I am already on a plane while writing this on my way to the dream destination. This is the place I so much dreamed of as a kid.

It all began with my hobby while in high school when I teamed up with my brother on a lofty goal to amass all the stamps in the world but soon we realized that there are more stamps than we can probably imagine. We decided to pick a theme for our stamps collection and get serious about it. Soon we had picked 3 themes - birds, animals and Antarctica. We had several discussions with a fellow collector on the topic of Antarctica. It was a great way to learn all about this "mystery continent" while growing up. Those were the days of no Internet and our text books hardly taught us anything about Antarctic history or geography. We did spend a lot of time in the library learning about the continent and taking notes about the key milestones in Antarctica's history. At that point we were only focussed to go after the stamps that depict major milestones/research/wildlife which would enable us to compete in philatelic exhibitions. Participating in these exhibitions required not just having a huge pile of stamps but to narrate a story with relevant philatelic illustrations. It was interesting to read all about Antarctica - the explorers, the seasons, the flora and fauna, the base stations, the icebergs and more.

I got super excited when I found out that India also has a base station called "Maitri" in the north-east of Antarctica. Apparently only researchers get to visit/work at these base stations. In my opinion, visiting Antarctica is as exotic as space travel itself, the only difference being we will be still on Earth. In my imaginations, I pictured Antarctica as a totally different planet :)

Until a few years ago I had no clue it was possible to visit this blue-ice continent. It was my b'day in 2008 and we were looking for some interesting non-commonplace destination to travel. Tierra del Fuego in the southernmost tip of Argentina suddenly seemed accessible owing to my work assignment in Brazil. We planned up a week-long trip to Argentina with a short stay in Buenos Aires (as the protocol goes..) and most of the time in Ushuaia. It was a great trip, we got to see the Argentinian penguins, seals, the beautiful Beagle channel, the end of world (fin del mundo) train, the hikes and the long days.

On one of the boat rides to see the penguins, I mentioned to Andy about my dream trip to Antarctica. After a little research we discovered that Ushuaia is the gateway to visit Antarctica. We visited a bunch of travel agencies and collected all possible details about a possible trip next year. Frankly speaking, this turned out to be the highlight of our trip to Ushuaia. With a promise to return back soon we left Ushuaia. Due to some work related changes our next visit to Ushuaia took longer than expected. Every year I spent hours of time doing research geared towards visiting Antarctica while watching documentaries and reading lonely planet guides/blogs/websites. Now, after 2yrs the we are finally going and I am super duper excited. I am glad Andy shares the same excitement. We plan on enjoying each and every moment on this childhood dream trip of mine and I'm very eager to find out how it goes.