I am currently in Santiago. I am 28 hours into my trip and hopefully on the last leg with only six more to go. It has been uneventful, except that I have been fighting with every check-in as I refuse to put my boots and jacket in the hold as I have been warned that they sometimes lose luggage. And if I lose these pieces of equipment I won’t be going to Antarctica. So far I have managed to blag my way onto the planes with excess cabin luggage, but if push comes to shove I will have to wear everything and go on that way as they will not be able to stop me.

I arrived in Punta Arenas on the evening of 2nd January. Punta is quite an interesting place, it has a population 125,000 a small city. The entire region only has a population of 150,000. Mostly Spanish, Yugoslavs and Germans. It is quite dour place, with a bit of a sort of frontier town atmosphere. It is quite cold with an average annual temperature of 6°C. It is midsummer here now and barely warm enough to walk round without a second layer.

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