As the sun sets and the cloudy sky melds with the glaring white of the frozen terrain, tourists trudging in single file line marvel over blue glaciers in Antarctica, a hip new vacation destination.The group paid a
small fortune — $3,000 per head — for a quick five-hour visit to the frozen continent, arriving by plane.
“Coming to Antarctica was a dream for me and my wife,” American John Reiss, 81, said as he stood beside his wife Sharon, 73.“We signed up a couple years ago, but we couldn’t get on it, so we went on a waiting list. This year we signed a year in advance and we made it.”The couple boarded a cruise ship in Florida, where they live, to head to Punta Arenas in the south of Chile, where they caught a two-hour flight to Antarctica.
Penguin colonies
The tourists visited the island of King George, in the South Shetlands archipelago and the neighboring Russian station of Bellingshausen with its out-of-place Orthodox church.They also saw the small Chilean hamlet of Villa Las Estrellas home to just 64 people and colonies of penguins.Another option is to tour Half Moon Island, a habitat of seals and penguins that is home to the Argentine base of Teniente Camara.There they can sip a hot cup of coffee, send a postcard and get their passport stamped with a picture of a krill, a kind of small shrimp that is the symbol of the base.
“It was a fantastic experience. The first thing that makes this trip special is being able to visit such a well-preserved, untouched continent,” said Canadian Maureen Malone, 69.“The second is being able to see the penguins. Everybody loves the penguins. Also, I was able to see around the bases, see how the different countries are sharing the region.”
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