Antarctic adventure - Day 9 Leaving

I am finally back in Blip contact after the most amazing week and a bit in Antarctica.

Although our ship did have satellite internet it was way too slow to use for Blip.  It did allow me to keep in touch with family and friends via WhatsApp which worked well apart from the occasional outage.

I have decided to back blip a day at a time starting tomorrow with Day 0 as we left Ushuaia.   

The last 9 days have been amazing.  This picture shows the plane arriving on the airstrip on King George Island to take us back to Punta Arenas.   The airstrip is a truly bizarre place with a gravel runway and no terminal building of any kind.   We had to wait outside in the cold for our flight to come in.   

This morning we had a most interesting talk by three of the female guides who had over-wintered in Antarctica (entitled "3 chicks in the freezer!")   One of them was a base doctor.

Our arrival on the island for the flight home was by zodiacs followed by a 30 minute walk through Russian and Chilean bases to get to the "airport"

We are now in a nice hotel in Punta Arenas where I have just opened my bag to release the all pervasive smell of penguins which seems to have soaked into everything I wear (and probably me too)

For those that aren't already aware,  penguins smell like fish that you threw in a bin two weeks ago and forgot about

More tomorrow - off to have a shower to get rid of the penguins