When you have traveled all over Europe, traveled thousands of miles across the USA, and even become quite bored with Asian countries, a difficult task arises for travelers. How to surprise yourself if you have already seen almost everything? What remains is the exotic, such as hard-to-reach countries. But if, for example, it is difficult to get a visa to Turkmenistan, then it is also difficult to get to some regions. Antarctica is considered one of the most inaccessible places on the planet – not only because of its remoteness, but also because a tour can cost as much as a budget car.
There are two ways to get to Antarctica – by water and by air. Several companies organize cruise ship tours. The cost of travel directly depends on the conditions you expect: travel in standard cabins can cost less than $10,000, while prices for luxury cabins reach exorbitant numbers – 30,000 euros or more. Ships sail mainly from South America. Airplanes fly from there, from Chile. Alternatively, departure from
is possibleSOUTH AFRICA. It would be logical to organize flights from Australia – the continent is located close to Antarctica. There really are such trips, but to travel from there you will have to retrain as a scientist who works at an Arctic station: tourist flights from Australia to Antarctica do not include landings, only sightseeing excursions. In principle, if you don’t go too fancy, you can spend 5-8 thousand dollars for a cruise along the coast of the continent with stops in interesting places. It is still expensive, but for such an unusual trip you can spend money. If you are ready for such expenses, here is a list of what you need to see in Antarctica.
Bloody Falls
One might assume that everything on a glacier should be dazzling white. But in 1911, scientist Thomas Griffith Taylor discovered an unusual phenomenon – a flow of red-brown liquid.
Photo: Peter Rejcek
The explanation for this is simple. There is a lake under the glacier and water comes from it through a crack in the ice. The liquid turns out to be this color due to the large amount of iron, and its salinity is several times higher than ocean water, so it does not freeze even at -10 degrees. Despite the harsh conditions, the lake is home to many microorganisms – scientists believe that similar life could exist in glaciers on other planets.
Church in the Cave
On the territory of an Argentine research station there is a Catholic church – right in an ice cave. It works all year round. This is an interesting place for tourists, and religious station workers come here for confession.
Photo: churchpop.com
Apparently, this is the southernmost church on Earth. Inside there are several rooms with icons and crosses in the walls.
Lemaire Strait
This is a popular route for cruise ships that go to the Antarctic Peninsula. The place looks amazing – dark water, snowy hills, glaciers in the middle of the strait. It’s better to stock up on batteries and memory cards for the camera in advance.
It’s a special luck to meet whales and killer whales, which periodically swim here and follow the ship.
Falkland Islands
On this archipelago, which is located next to Argentina, the climate is much more pleasant than on the glacier itself. In warm months it can reach +15, and in cold months the temperature stays just above zero. Cruise ships usually come here on their way to Antarctica.
There are a lot of penguins here, who have long been accustomed to people and allow themselves to be photographed at close range. You can find them here more often than people: less than three thousand people live on the bases. Local residents mainly breed sheep to sell wool.
Mawson Sea
The sea washes Antarctica from the east, the coast stretches for eight hundred kilometers. There are many drifting glaciers and icebergs here, which makes the place beautiful and gives it an authentic look: coastal Antarctica usually looks like this in photographs.
Photo: antarctica.gov.au
In the second half of the 1950s, there was a Soviet scientific station called “Oasis”, and now Australian researchers are working at the Casey station near the Mawson Sea.
