Week 9: Su 3 February 2019, 8:13. Cape Shirreff, Livingston Island, Antarctica
Imagine you’re sunk in a Kelty camping chair – the kind you spread open and sit in around a campfire – in a 6-man American Antarctic camp. From the coziness of your navy blue fleece sleeping bag (blankie), you’re watching “The Big Bang Theory” with your crew. Being 22:30 in late January, you didn’t need to close the window covers to darken the room for watching the show projected on the pull-down screen. You have a belly full of turkey enchiladas made with leftovers from yesterday’s Turkey Tuesday Thanksgiving dinner. Melty chocolate cookies continue to tempt you from the countertop. All is as it should be.
Then you hear what sounds like a knock on the door. Confused, you look around and wonder if you imagined it, only to hear a crewmate say, “Come in!” You next experience the most bizarre sensation of the season when the door opens and you hear unfamiliar, accented voices.
What??? The Chileans who were in the next door camp have been gone for at least a week! How, who, what, etc. is here outside the door?
Being so utterly shocked by what seems to be happening, you surprise even yourself by being the 2nd person to go to the door to see who’s outside. There you find 3 brightly dressed men, at least one of whom is good-looking and looks roughly your age. They’re welcome to visit.
As they begin to emerge from puffy layers of red-orange, blue, and green insulation, you learn they came by snowmachine (“Ski-Doo”) from across the glacier. They’re Spaniards from the Juan Carlos Primera base, which is somewhere on the southern side of Livingston Island. Arkaitz, Alberto, and Pablo are mountain guides who work in the Antarctic to facilitate scientific research, and they’ve traveled to Cape Shirreff to leave some bulky GPS device behind to receive or transmit for a few days. They’ll return to pick it up in 5 or 6 days.
Having adjusted to having multi-lingual company, you turn on the Christmas lights and pull out more chairs. Over tea, cookies, and a beverage gifted by your guests, you learn that there are about 50 Spaniards at Juan Carlos. What a metropolis! Your crewmates notice that 2 of them seem to have some frostbitten fingers. Arkaitz and Alberto are from the Basque-speaking area of Spain and can talk without Pablo being able to understand. Both being curious about the other team, you swap questions about each other and slowly wind down for the night. They’ll sleep in Little Chile (Chilean camp) and join you for breakfast.
As you drift off to sleep, you think, “How unexpected and fun!” A few Spaniards had shown up 2 years ago and thrown everyone off, but you hadn’t expected to have the experience yourself. For being such a remote camp, it was a truly Antarctic day.