2016 has come to an end and I have to say it's been a great year! Lots of high's and low's but overall, it's been solid. Why? Lots of traveling, and I mean A LOT! First trip was to Machu Picchu with Brandon and Kyle followed by a trip to Aruba for my 24th birthday with Justin, Andrew, Krista, Bullens and Jackie (new friend). It doesn't stop there, just a month later I made my way to Munich for an early Oktoberfest with my good buddy Kyle Woodward from elementary school. Immediately followed by a weekend trip to Maui, changing jobs and another weekend trip to London and Paris with my mom over thanksgiving and finally the long awaited trip to South America for part dos including ANTARCTICA! Yes, THE white continent known for its vast glaciers and ice bergs the size of some states and even countries!
Before we dive straight into Antarctica, this trip starts the day after I signed a new apartment in Chicago, after living on the road for four months continuously, it was time to have a home again! It's December 7th and I'm in Chicago packing all of my gear for Antarctica, I'm second guessing myself, that I'm forgetting something, so I ask Beena to look at what I've laid out and she doesn't react the way I had hoped she would. How could she? Everything I thought I needed fit perfectly on my bed, with quite a lot of space left over for more gear obviously.
Birthday Catch!
I decided it was enough for me, I emptied my bag that I use weekly for work and packed everything away into just that one small carry on. One month of travel with only one small bag, now you know the reason for questioning myself. With less than 24 hours left before departing for Buenos Aires, I began to mentally worry. What could I have been thinking about? EVERYTHING! I couldn't get over the thought that I'm 24 years old and I'm about to hit my 7th and final continent! "What is life?!" was the main question rushing through my mind. Not only that, but what's next after? After stressing about the future long enough it was time stop and go to sleep, I had an early flight the next day so some real sleep after spending 4 months on the road out of hotels, airplane seats and couch's was much needed!
The next day I made it to the airport, boarded my plane to Miami and there I was...off to the end of the world! The feeling was overwhelming, during the entire flight I couldn't stop thinking about all the trips I had taken in the past. Everything was coming back so vividly, good times and bad. It was all of that, which led to this! After landing in Miami, I had about an hour to kill before my 10 hour flight to BA, only made sense to grab a Cuban sandwich and a corona! Good thing that I ate the cubano cause the airplane food was terrible! I landed the next morning in Buenos Aires and my nerves had quickly died down, it was time to figure out how to get past the language barrier and find a way into the city. All the ATM's were completely empty and I completely forgot to get cash while I was still in the US. After wandering aimlessly looking for a functioning ATM I wandered into a cell phone store and bought a SIM card for my phone. Some people maybe thinking "why the hell would he be wanting a SIM card when he has no money to get into town?" I'll tell you why, first of all they take credit cards which means I now have a way to find a way into the city! How so? UBER!
The SIM card saved me, I quickly got an uber and made it into the city to my hotel. My problems weren't done there, as Argentina's economy is in shambles, most of the ATM's were empty, no one trusts the banks with their money, so as soon as they are refilled people empty them out ASAP! It took a while to find an ATM that did spit out cash and when it did, I took out as much as I could! Buenos is a very credit card friendly place but as much as it is, doesn't mean it's like every where in the US, the cash was definitely necessary!
Brandon was due to arrive later in the evening since his flights were delayed so I then started exploring on my own. While I was in Maui, I met a girl from Argentina, her name was Florencia. As I was flying in I sent her a message to see if she was around to get lunch, she just so happened to be in the city before heading to Brazil in the evening. Had a fantastic time seeing her again! After the reunion I went around Buenos Aires to some very questionable places. This economic collapse had kept people on edge, you never want to have your backpack on your back as someone could come behind you and cut it off, you also wouldn't want to walk around in public with your cell phone out since the possibility of someone swiping it was very high!
Summit of Mt. Haleakala - Maui, Hawaii
I wasn't that impressed with BA, it may have been because I came during a holiday that just so happened to run through the entire weekend Brandon and I were there. The immaculate conception de Virgin Mary, I'm sure you understand what it's all about. After Brandon rolled through it was time to rage! It started out with the free bottle of Vino that was in our room followed by a completely fabricated business celebration anniversary which led to a free bottle of champagne. Quickly after, it was time to go get food, I had managed to talk Brandon into Paella. I found a solid spot in the city and we were off, when we arrived we were given free glasses of more champagne! We were feeling pretty good by this point, the free champagne was just bonus.
The Paella was fantastic, I don't think it could have gotten any better according to Argentinian standards, which are mediocre at best! The Paella you can get in Spain puts Argentina to shame! But, if you want a quick fix...not a bad place to go! After dinner, it was time to experience the Buenos Aires night life, I found a club and we were getting pretty excited, I had told Brandon that South American folks don't start to party until at least 2-3 AM but we still went anyway. By this point it's already midnight so we gave it a shot. When we arrived, we began questioning our choices. Parking lot was empty, no one was around other than the bouncers, we went up to the entrance and asked for prices. Bottle service was $30 bucks (cheapest I've ever found). We go inside and found a nice spot with a bucket of ice and a nice bottle of champagne, however there were only around 20 people there.
London & Paris with my Mom!
As we got closer to finishing the bottle, Brandon was already on cloud nine, he was in the middle of the dance floor trying to start the party, no one joined him. At this point we had given up, after over 24 hours of flying and very little sleep, it was time to call it a night. We had an early flight to Santiago Chile in less than 6 hours so we decided to go back to the hotel.
I had set an alarm to wake us up the next morning but I may have accidentally turned it off right as it rang. I completely forgot to actually get up. Brandon about an hour before our flight came up to me, woke me up and asks, "Hey Raj, what time is our flight?" I said "9:45" Brandon responds "it's 8:45"! Yeah, we quickly threw things into our bags and started to scramble. We had already checked into the flight the night before so we still thought we had a shot of getting there. We were in a cab by 8:50 and hauling ass to the Airport. As we arrived to the airport, we went straight to the departures where we had to do immigration, with our electronic boarding passes, we thought "we made it!" At Immigration we head and saw some Spanish words followed by flight "canceled". Brandon and I were told to go back to ticketing to get rebooked. When we got there, it's already 9:20. We knew the flight was most likely boarding. The ticketing agent told us that the flight was not canceled, but it was just a simple flight number change which messed everything up in their system. She reprinted us new boarding passes and Brandon and I started to Jet back towards immigration. Right as we are about to go through immigration towards the gates, their computers all shut down. We were stuck in immigration not knowing what was really going on.
Welcome to the End of the World
After 3-4 translators later, we learned that boarding had stopped due to the technical malfunctions. We were saved! Thirty minutes later, we get through immigration and our flight board says "Last Call" so much for not boarding! Oh well, we made it and were on our way to Santiago! I was really looking forward to Chile, not only because BA was so boring, but I also had another reunion with a really good friend that I made while I was in Thailand. Luis and I met on the ferry while going to Koh Phi Phi and after, we managed to stay quite inebriated the rest of the day, I even told him about my Antarctica trip which was well over a year away at the time. Now it was time to see him again, and the reason I was in the area; Antarctica!
We met up with Luis once we had settled in and started to roam around the city, as any reunion we celebrated with the one thing that brought us together...beer! Soon after lunch and drinks we went to the highest point of Santiago, took in all the great views and had a great walk down. Tonight was the night to catch up on sleep, the following night was when things got wild! The next day, Luis met up with us again and the three of us took a bus to Valparaiso, which so far was the highlight of our trip! The city was rich with so much culture that BA and Santiago seemed to lack. After a day trip, we went back to Santiago, said our goodbye's to Luis and then Brandon and I and I went out to dinner. We both weren't having as great of a time like we had in Peru. We were debating on going out since it was our last night, on our way back to the hotel, we wandered into the W hotel. At this point, we had officially decided to just grab drinks and then call it a night. Right as we walk in, we hear club music. Brandon makes it his mission to find where the music was coming from.
The night was just beginning, we needed to get amped so we went to the W hotel bar and starred prepping! In doing so, we met a local who ended up joining us for a night of complete madness! The three of us went downstairs and paid our cover and boom, we were at the biggest party in the city! Brandon was in his usual raging mindset and for those of you who don't know what that is, you'll just have to ask him yourself! Let's just say he was in search for the nectar of gods. Overall, what ended up being a somewhat boring trip ended up turning around quick! I ended up leaving an hour or so earlier than Brandon, right as I got back to the hotel I passed out.
After about an hour, I woke up and Brandon comes in with room service. I quickly passed out again but woke up two more times and all I could hear was Brandon puking in the bathroom. It wasn't until he woke up that I found out he ate ceviche and chicken alfredo at 5 am. As we got ready to leave, the receptionist helped him recall some more events such as playing the Piano for the hotel guests. Some guests even asked if he worked for the hotel and the receptionist responded "no he just came back from partying, but I heard him play and he's good when he's sober and even now." Then she began telling me what he had originally ordered, first it was a burger, then he canceled the burger when he saw ceviche and the alfredo. Quite funny that he was reminded of what happened from the hotel staff.
It was now time to go back to BA, we had one more day to kill before Justin came into town, and the three of us began our trip down to Fin Del Mundo (the end of the world aka southern most city of the world) USHUAIA! Before that, we still had a day to kill, so we took a ferry into Uruguay, a small town called Colonia! As soon as we got there, Brandon wanted to take a lame ass tour bus, I managed to convince him to keep walking, within 5 minutes we found a shop that rented golf carts. Problem solved, time to go off the beaten path! We got a map and hit the open road, first stop was a beach side play ground, Brandon really wanted to climb a tree to reminisce his younger days, he climbed out to a very flimsy looking branch and just sat there. In my mind I knew he was thinking "damn, I probably shouldn't have done this" because anymore movement would have most likely broken the branch. Brandon then decides to jump, he lands flat footed and hits the ground hard. He's like "it didn't look that high, man that hurt!" Followed by "God! I'm getting old" there's an excellent GoPro video for anyone's amusement if they'd like to see it.
Shortly after, we began exploring the rest of Colonia, we walked around the old city and climbed up a light house, overall it was a solid way to spend the day. We did have a huge problem though, we were done seeing everything by 2pm and our ferry didn't leave till 8. We took a few more laps around in our golf cart, we even tried to get lost but it was practically impossible! I did manage to find a road that lead to a Sheraton Resort & Golf course so we both decided it was time to hit the driving range. I'm not that great at golf and neither is Brandon but it was a way to pass time so we gave it a shot. We rented two drivers and got two buckets of golf balls and walked out to the range. As Brandon pretty much went through most of his bucket, I saw something huge take off from his direction! It was a line drive right down the middle of the driving range, for a while it didn't register and I thought "Damn son, don't hit them so hard, you're making me look bad!" Then I actually looked at him and noticed that his driver no longer had a head. I look down range and there's a huge piece of metal, I couldn't stop laughing, he literally broke that shit!
He then began telling me that the lady who gave us the clubs gave him a "weak" driver. No way you can make this shit up! You can see the look in his eyes "I'm not paying for this driver, NO WAY!" So as we walked back inside, I gave my driver back in one piece to soften the blow, then Brandon hands back the pieces and the lady just looks at us, she probably wondering "huh, I'm pretty sure this was one piece when I gave it to you." Brandon then began to message all of his Spanish speaking friends on Facebook asking them how to say "you gave me a weak driver." The lady was trying to call her boss but she couldn't get a hold of anyone so she came back to us, at this point we had google translated "the driver was weak" and she just decided to let us go without paying. We both ran out of that hotel quick! Fired up the golf cart and gunned it out of the resort area. There was an immense amount of laughter followed by "wtf do we do now?" So we continued to try getting lost by taking random roads not knowing where they go!
It became apparent after a while that getting lost was no longer feasible so we then began our search for a beach front bar, we found one in minutes and our time pass problem was solved! We stayed long enough to kill time, how could Colonia be this small? For dinner, we had some fantastic shrimp and avocado crepes, my mind was blown! The time had now come, to return our golf cart and make our way back to the ferry to go back to Buenos! After a very long delay, we were back in the city, it was our last night so the thought of raging came across our minds. We went back to the hotel and Brandon wanted to nap till 1-2 AM so we'd be ready to go out but instead we both didn't wake up since we never actually set an alarm.
The next morning, we waited for Justin to arrive! It literally took him close to 4 hours to get from the airport to the hotel. He even ditched his cab about a mile from the hotel and began walking! Once he arrived, it was now time for the real adventure to begin! We had to transfer to the city airport to catch our domestic flight to Ushuaia. Once at the airport, we caught up with Justin over beers and burgers at the hard rock restaurant. Fast forward through boarding and flying, we all had window seats. I had told Brandon and Justin they should stay awake as the mountains surrounding Fin Del Mundo were some they didn't want to miss! As soon as the clouds cleared, it seemed as if we were about to land on a different planet, the landscape was so picturesque. Rivers and mountains in every direction! Even the town of Ushuaia looked like something you'd see in a movie or imagine while reading a book. The three of us had two days here before I went on further south to Antarctica, it was time to explore!
Since we arrived pretty late in the day, we checked into our hostel which was pretty good for one at the end of the world, it would have been much more boring for those staying there if we hadn't showed up! After checking in, we went to dinner, drank a lot of good beer, walked around town, went to the only bar in town, drank with probably every person that drinks in town and then bought our own beers and went back to our hostel. At this point, the only place we could drink was the common area, we show up and it's a hot box and everyone is whispering! By far the most dull hostel I'd ever seen. At this point Brandon, Justin and I walk in with nearly 9-10 beers and everyone is just staring at us! "Yeah, we're the stereotypical Americans, we like to drink and have fun" that's what's probably going through all of our minds. We sat down and started talking among each other with our not so quiet voices.
After ten minutes, people started joining our conversations and then it was poppin! We started making tons of frannnns, hours of chatting and meeting new people and it was time for bed! The next day, we had to check into the Arakur Resort, probably the fanciest place in all of Ushuaia! This is where my entire expedition was staying before we had left the next day for Antarctica. It's 9 am and I check into my room and also meet my roommate. He's quite interesting. He was from India, in his mid fifties, traveled the world and has by now set his sights on the elusive white continent. We were all there for the same reason so I thought rooming with someone older, more wise would be good for me...then shit hit the fan, but not all at once, it came in increments.
Antarctic Camping
As we checked into our room's, my roommate (he who shall not be named) wanted to hang out with us, we took a shuttle into Ushuaia and as we're getting off, he asks if we should start drinking. Brandon, Justin and I were a little hesitant because it was barely 10 A.M. After going through two bottles of champagne, we decided to split off from my roommate and hit the national park. After spending close to four hours hiking around, we went back to town, bought some duty free booze for the three of us back at the hotel. As I walk into my room, my cabin mate has already drank through a pint of whiskey and is halfway passed out on his bed. By now, I'm thinking he noticed I had a bottle of Double Black. I stepped into the shower and as I got out, he had already looked through my bag and asked if he could join us when we cracked open the bottle. I thought "what the hell, we'll be in Antarctica together so why not". After going through the first bottle, we started on a second. I'm sure by now, my roommate was LIT!
I went back to my room and fell asleep and so did my roommate, but a few hours later, he ordered a bottle of wine at 5AM. The hotel refused to deliver alcohol that early but he somehow convinced them. The server comes into our room, at this point I'm sneakily looking at what's going on while acting like I was still sleeping. The server uncorked the bottle and attempted to pour some wine into a glass, my roommate refused the glass and thought it would be more efficient to drink straight from the bottle. At this point, I was in shock, as soon as the server left, my roommate attempted to walk back to his bed with the bottle and immediately fell onto the floor. An actual person sleeping would have woken up so I couldn't act like I was sleeping cause he just face planted on the floor. He surprisingly saved the bottle. I managed to help him get back into bed and tried to take the bottle away but it didn't work, he had a vice grip around he neck. At this point I showered, packed my bag and left it outside of my room for the hotel staff to take to the ship and immediately went to Justin and Brandon's room.
After he managed to stay drunk throughout the entire morning, he somehow made it to the ship after causing a huge scene at the hotel. I was gone at this point, roaming around in Ushuaia. As I made it on to the ship, we had started our safety briefing and my roommate was nowhere to be found. I thought "maybe he didn't make it". I head to my room after the safety demonstration and muster station drills and my roommate is already passed out in our cabin. By now, the ship staff already knew he was drunk so they called a doctor and some police officers to test his blood alcohol level. Let's just say it didn't end well, he then got escorted off the ship and was taken to the hospital. While the outcome was not great, he was a safety hazard on the ship. If he managed to stay drunk while crossing the drake passage (the roughest seas on earth) he could have easily fallen off if he had wandered outside on deck. There were 9 police officers and two doctors that led him off the ship, and yes I have a video. The entire ordeal was a shit show!
At this point, we were delayed two hours and had a long journey across the Drake, bad weather was expected and the quicker we could leave the better we would have been. By now, I had met my other roommate, he was MIA during all of this because he was smart enough to get his own room at the hotel. His name was Troy and he was from SF, we got along great! We now had two days between us and Antarctica, time to make some new friends! For the longest time I thought I would have been the youngest on the ship but on the first day I met another guy in his 20's. His name was Blake, lived in Canada and it was his last continent all at the age of 23. These two days at sea we had some amazing lectures by the expedition staff, learned about the early expeditions to the white continent and the huge whaling industry that was also present in the early 1900's. We got our expedition parka's which looked amazing, they were also super warm! I'm pretty sure this was way better than any of the Canada Goose shit people in Chicago are wearing.
7/7 - DONE!
The days went on, plenty of good food, booze, and friends! On the third day, we started seeing our first ice bergs. The anticipation had built by now that seeing any sort of ice was astounding. Little did we know that the ice we were seeing were small ice cubes compared to the colossal tabular ice bergs and mountains we'd see in the days to come. As much as I'd like to write about Antarctica, I believe the pictures I took will tell a much better story. Let's just say there were millions of Chinstrap, Adelie and Gentoo penguins EVERYWHERE along with Leopard Seals, Whales, and crazy big birds. We were able to get off the ship twice a day for hiking, zodiac cruises and camping. Our night of camping was quite awesome, we dug into the snow under the mid night sun, laid out sleeping pads and slept in bivvy sacks (sleeping bag covered with a water proof liner) with millions of penguins all around us. I have to say, it was pretty hard to sleep when all you're thinking is "wow, I'm in Antarctica, thousands of miles away from home, at the bottom of the world, camping on ice. Antarctica was definitely a game changer, all 7 continents are crossed off for me. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person from Mount Vernon, Kentucky to have done this. Next up is a weekend in Cuba, look out for the next post!
