Set sail for Antarctica!

At the bottom of the world lies a once-in-a-lifetime destination... But first, on his way to the Great White Continent, Toast Coetzer detoured to the Falkland Islands and ticked off a handful of lifers.

- Toast Coetzer

The clouds parted as the plane descended, revealing snow-capped mountains, forests in ravines and water glinting in the sun: the Tierra del Fuego archipelago in Argentina, at the southern end of South America. A new world.

Guts Swanepoel and I looked at each other. It felt unreal to be travelling to Antarctica. Guts was still dressed in shorts and vellies. Two days before, he’d woken up in Kasane, Botswana, and I had brushed my teeth in Cape Town. We’d met up in Joburg and flew to Doha in the Middle East, then to São Paolo in Brazil, and on to Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. We slept there last night – jet-lagged but not so tired that we couldn’t try their world-famous steak – and this morning we caught the last flight to Ushuaia, the city where our nearly three-week Antarctica voyage would begin.

The plane dipped lower and started to line up with the runway. Now the mountains were above us and the water was suddenly very close…

The strait below was the Beagle Channel, named after the HMS Beagle, the ship that carried Charles Darwin through here in 1833. In two days, we’d navigate the same channel into the open ocean and embark on our own journey.

The plane landed with a firm nod. The airport was attractive, with wooden beams and big glass windows. A short taxi ride took us to the Albatros Hotel in midtown, just across the road from the harbour. It was no longer shorts weather and Guts changed into something warmer.