Antarctica - a lifelong dream

At some point I had to come out and say that it wasn't really a lifelong dream to go to the South Pole. Best do it right now.

I have to admit that I didn't read Amundsen, Scott or Shackleton as a kid. I never dreamed of following in their footsteps. (Which I still don't do. I am in love with places and landscapes, not with difficult journeys. I've met a group of Norwegians at the South Pole, who had gone there all the way from the 82°S. No depots, carrying all their stuff. Am I impressed by what they have done? Yes! Do I envy them? No, not at all. Except maybe for being able to spend almost two months in Antarctica. But I would gladly spend the two months just being there, without doing the sledge pulling bit.)

Getting back to the point: I never dreamed about going to the South Pole, because, as far as I knew, there was no way of getting there. The only people ever going there were adventurers on expeditions (which I wasn't) or people working at the South Pole station (which were only Americans, which I wasn't either). So getting to the South Pole was about as impossible as flying on the back of dragons or leaping tall buildings in a single bound. At best the stuff of fantasies, but nothing to actually long for.

This changed about a decade ago. Essentially there were three things that happened:

• Starting to travel in northern countries and finding out that I really liked snow and ice. The main experience was seeing the icebergs near Illulissat (Greenland), but going to Canada, Finland, Iceland, Svalbard, Alaska and so on, made me notice that I enjoyed that kind of environment and made me long for the ultimate in snow and ice.
• Seeing Michael Palin do it in 'From Pole to Pole'. Suddenly there was this guy, who was neither an explorer, nor an American and he got to the Pole. And I found out that there was this company that took mere tourists to the Pole.
• Buying the Lonely Planet 'Antarctica' book. Mostly out of curiosity. I found the "Iceland, Greenland & the Faeroe Islands" book very useful, bought the "The Antarctic" book more or less as a companion piece to it. And was amazed by the stuff about the interior of the continent and the bits about the South Pole. (Most other 'Antarctica' books I had seen either just covered the costal areas, where the cruise ships go, or told about the interior only in terms of heroic travels, suffering and selfish travelogues, with little about the actual place.) Yes, I know that it's a bit irritating to harp about self-serving travelogues, when this is exactly what I am writing right now - but at least I can claim that it's a long-standing tradition of the place...

So I realized that, in theory, I would be able to go to the South Pole. Wouldn't be able to afford it, but that is exactly the point of something you dream about and what distinguishes it from a mere fantasy. You can dream about owning a Rolls Royce or a private jet, even if it is way out of reach financially, but you can only fantasize about the Batmobile or flying an X-Wing over Endor.

If I had known as a kid that I would enjoy cold countries and that it would be possible to go to the pole as a tourist, it would probably have been my lifelong dream. But as it happened, it has only been my lifelong dream for about ten years. Good enough for me.

Back to the main South Pole trip description