The Start of the Journey to the South Pole

7AM: I woke to the sound of my alarm. I set up the phone to buzz me at 6AM in anticipation of the call from ANI people. It turned out my phone is set to different time zone :). Anyway, I got no knocking on my door by the owner of the hostel. We were told ANI staff to call us at 6 to 6:15 if we are to fly today, if not, they would call around 10 for different schedule. Nothing happened at 6. I was a little disappointed but totally understood. This is nothing new. Even for a short flight to a Chilean base at the edge of Antarctica on a tour last time I did was delayed multiple times. I realized a long time ago that we come to Antarctica not to conquer it, but to work with it. I thought there would be no flight today.

But by 9:30, Rene (another person from ANI) phoned and told me the weather report they received was looking good and by 10ish, they would get another and let me know. My excitement level increased just by this news.

At 10:56, Rene called again and said, more delay. We have to wait until noon to get confirmation from Patriot Hills.

Just now, at 12:17 Rene called with great news. They will come pick me up at 1pm, departing for the Patriot Hills. I am totally excited.

From now on, it’ll be just text messages I will be sending from Antarctica, not the whole paragraph. Hopefully things work out for me here. But the main thing is I hope everything works out well for me in Antarctica. Wish me luck. It’s showtime!