South

The body of water that separates the Horn and Antarctic is one of the toughest passages in the world, but I can now say I have done it. I even have a certificate testifying to the fact, in the unlikely event I should ever need to prove it.
The bottom of the world seems completely disconnected from the rest. From Moscow or Caracas you can still feel part of a worldwide connected community. Here you feel everyone else has left you and gone off to do something better and left you stranded in the ice. I had prepared for the cold, it is not like I don’t have experience living in cold climates. But something about the wind here added a chill I wasn’t prepared for, so I shivered even under my layers of wool and fur. And I watched penguins and sea lions as the latter attempted to make lunch of the former. “that’s the thing,” said the guide “everyone thinks sea lions are nice and cute until you watch one rip the head off a penguin, then people get horrified.” I suppose no one likes to see the realities of nature brought home. And penguins are cute. We looked at them in their little houses, and watched as late chicks tried to remove the last remaining brown feathers off their tuxedo like fronts so that they would be able to swim away and join their kin on their great migrations.