All the way south

In winter on the Antarctic peninsula, it gets so cold that even the sea freezes over. Frozen seawater makes getting around easier, and once upon a time it allowed three British scientists from the Faraday Antarctic research base to ski their way across the solid sea ice to spend some leisure time away from the base. Around about the time they reached Petermann Island, six miles away, a big storm kicked up and broke up the sea ice. They had radio contact from a hut on the island. At first, they provided updates every day. Then once a week. Then once a fortnight. Eventually, they cut contact altogether. With constant inclement weather and pack ice remaining on the water, it was a long period of time before their location could be reached. By the time it was, they were already presumed dead. When rescuers entered the hut, the one you see above, all they found were penguin feet nailed to the tables. Presumably they had gone mad from hunger and isolation. This was in 1982. Hea...

There are a few different ways you can "do" the Galapagos, but from what I read the best way, where you make the best use of your precious/expensive time there, is to go on a multi-day boat cruise, where you sleep on the boat as it travels to the next destination overnight. So that's what I decided to do. When I was booking the tour in the Quito hostel-attached travel agency, a friendly Finn named Marko overheard that I needed to go to the airport at the same time as him the next day, so we agreed to share a taxi. As it turned out, we'd be sharing more than that - we were booked on the same tour boat, and sharing the same cabin. The complications that arose from making a last minute booking meant that Marko and I needed to fly there a day before our tour started, as the daily early flight on the day of the tour was booked out. This meant we had a night to chill out on Santa Cruz, the main Galapagos island, which has a well developed though touristy town named Puerto...