Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
balls of undercooked dough at Great Wall, drunk vodka at Bellingshausen and been given a piggy-
back across a deep stream by a Brazilian lieutenant commander. Each country transports its culture
to the bottom of the world when it sets up in Antarctica - the good and the bad. In Bellingshausen
the piles of rubbish, the acres of crusty mud, the puffy-faced men with silver teeth, the ghostly
outlines of the metal letters CCCP which had been clumsily jemmied off doors, the abandoned ma-
chinery of failed scientific projects, the single inadequate Lada - well, they were Russian all right.
Chile and Argentina base their Antarctic claims on medieval bulls and decrees inherited from
Spain, and they have clung to these claims like children to comfort blankets. One of the few things
the two nations have ever agreed upon was to take a common line against Britain - twice in the
1940s - by reinforcing the concept of a South America Antarctic (though later they squabbled even
about that). General Pinochet flew down to King George Island in 1977 and declared that it was
merely a continuation of Chilean territory. Six families were despatched there in 1984 to institute
a 'permanent' settlement. On the other side of the Andes the entire Cabinet took off from Buenos
Aires and landed on the ice to prove how very Argentinian that part of Antarctica was.
Other South American republics have also cast their eyes south. The Peruvians named their base
Machu Picchu. Much of the scientific data produced by the smaller nations was valuable, but some
of it was privately questioned by the larger, richer countries. All programmes are required to sub-
mit descriptions of their science projects to an international Antarctic science body, ostensibly so
that research can be shared. The Uruguayans once sent in details of an experiment which involved
playing loud music to penguins to see how they reacted.
Geopolitics dwelt in the north; on the ice there was only one enemy - the cold. I remember stop-
ping next to a stream between Marsh and Bellingshausen with my Chilean minder and a Russian
biologist.
'We are very proud of this river between us,' said the Russian in Spanish.
'What's it called?' I asked.
'Volga,' said the Russian immediately.
'Mapocho,' said the minder simultaneously, and they both screamed with laughter.
'En Antártida,'
the minder had said later, '
No hay fronteras
' - there are no borders. On the con-
tinent it was still as it had been in the forties when Chilean and Argentinian warships arrived at the
British base on Stonington Island and the captains delivered official protests about British pres-
ence in their territorial waters and followed them up with invitations to dinner and picture shows.
'Beyond the Polar Circle', said the great French Antarctican Jean Charcot, 'there are no French-
men, no Germans, no English, no Danes; there are only people of the Pole, real men.'
∗
The birds were especially abundant when the whales were churning up krill, and we argued when
we tried to identify them. Of petrels alone we recorded morphs, Antarctics, giants, pintados (the
zebras of the southern ocean), snowies and Wilson's. Ben was the most authoritative spotter.
'There!' he said one day, pointing to a bird wheeling around the ship. 'White-chinned petrel.'
'I can't see a white chin,' someone piped up. 'Looks totally brown to me.'
'You'd have to be holding the bird in your hand to see the white chin,' Ben said. 'But it's there.'
