Gaston's Graffiti

Looking Back – Penguin Beach

Gaston — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 14:40:41 +0000

There was one very special place at the Esperanza base in Antarctica, where I constantly returned to every day, often more than once a day. I called it Penguin Beach, although I am sure it has another official name. Even if it was located just a few hundred meters behind the base, most people did not know of its existence. You needed to climb a steep rocky hill to see it, where the wind constantly tried to swipe you off your feet. Once having reached the top of the heap of boulders though, a most magnificent view opened up. While the area around the base was mostly snowless for the summer, a thick, permanent patch of snow covered Penguin Beach, and showed no sign of melting. Most of the highways, paths and trails that the 250 000 penguins walked on the way to the ocean converged in this area the size of a dozen city blocks. At any hour of the day, hundreds or thousands of penguins crossed this patch of ice, while some stuck around to preen or rest after half-a-day at sea fishing for krill. Rush hour was around 6am and 6pm every day, when the parents who were out fetching food for their chicks returned to the colony, and their other half headed out towards the water. At these hours, tens of thousands birds nearly covered the whole area in black and white and trumpeted a raucous that could be heard all the way at the base.

Because of the constant animal traffic over the snow, Penguin Beach’s appearance constantly changed. The penguins coming from the land dragged in mud, tinting the area in shades of brown and orange. The penguins returning from the sea, stuffed with little krill, left trails of pink as they, huh, well, regurgitated their food, or pooed it out. Then algae also lived in the snow, blooming in shades of yellow and green, and somedays covering the whole icy expanse.

Whether the sun shone, or a blizzard blew, or fog blanketed the area, the activity never dimmed at Penguin Beach, keeping me mesmerized for weeks. Until one day, when word spread throughout the bird colony that winter was coming. Overnight, all the penguins left, all 250 000 of them, leaving just a few stragglers behind who still needed a few days of growing or molting. By the time I left, Penguin Beach was once again just a patch of snow, unaltered by the constant circulation of penguins on its surface, at least until October/November, when the birds will return to resume painting it.

Looking back – Top of the Glacier

Gaston — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 03:08:00 +0000

The base Esperanza in Antarctica sits right at the edge of a large sheet of ice called the Buenos Aires Glacier. We could climb it on rare occasions, only when the wind was not strong enough to blow us off our feet (in all seriousness), or if the sun was not turning it into a wet, slushy mess. So a nice calm, cold and cloudy day was always the best time to head up this massive heap of snow.

Going up there was like ascending into a world of white. White ground, white sky, white clouds. In some cases it looked like a Mark Rothko painting, if Mark Rothko had decided to paint only in shades of white. On warmer days, small streams carved their paths across the icy surface. On colder days, the frozen water made it so slippery that it was difficult to walk without the support of ski poles.

On top of the glacier, anchored to a nunatak*, stood a small orange refuge. It served to remind us that at any minute, a blizzard could suddenly break out, trapping us up there. Thankfully we never needed to use the refuge for anything other than a point of reference in the white expanse.

*nunatak: mountain peak surrounded by a glacier.

Looking back – Jubany

Gaston — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 22:08:55 +0000

Reaching the base where I was to do my residency in Antarctica, Esperanza, was neither easy nor obvious. On the way down, after having flown in the belly of an army cargo plane, landing at a Chilean base, and then taking a military boat for a 2-hour cruise, we arrived at the Argentine base Jubany. There we stayed for 3 days, waiting for another boat to take us to Esperanza. Jubany was overcrowded, and even if there was no space for us, the people there made every effort to accommodate us. After all, we were not expected there, but travel in Antarctica is often full of unexpected surprises. During the night, we slept on the floor, 4 in a room, in a dormitory still under construction, and during the day, we wandered the base, looking for seals and penguins, hiking around a moraine, just ecstatic to finally be in Antarctica.

Jubany is located on King George Island, which the Argentines call Isla 25 de Mayo. It sits in a small bay lined all around by glaciers that dumped massive chunks of ice in the water many times a day. Regardless of the uncomfortable sleeping arrangement, Jubany was a great introduction to what we were to experience further south in Esperanza. (By the way, it seems the name of the base was changed to Carlini last month…)

Weekly Saturday pizza party in the Jubany cafeteria.

Looking Back – Icebergs

Gaston — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 21:56:24 +0000

So I was in Antarctica for about 6 weeks in January and February 2012, and as some of you already know, I was not able to blog while I was there. First, my computer was broken and functioning on only half a brain, and second, my internet access was too weak to upload photos to my blog. All I was able to show my followers on Facebook and Twitter were some photos taken from my iPhone.

Now that I am back in Washington DC, and that my computer is fixed, I can finally start to edit my over 20 000 pictures. As I plow through all these files, I will try to post a few blogs , to show you some scenes from my trip.

In this post, I’d like to share my first sightings of icebergs with you. On a boat trip between the Antarctic Argentine bases Jubany and Esperanza, we crossed a field of icebergs. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen… but then again, I hadn’t yet set foot on the Antarctic continent.

El Cementerio de la Recoleta

Gaston — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:52:27 +0000

It’s one of the most famous necropoles in the world, and certainly one of the most grandiose. This is Argentina’s cemetery for its rich, its powerful, and its famous. Most notoriously, Eva Peron was laid to rest here, and that is what most people come to see. Although her tomb is extremely simple compared to the giant statues and massive chapels build for other lesser known residents of La Recoleta. One ubiquitous resident is the spider, weaving webs over all the statues, moldings and decorations, making it Halloween all year long here.

More Captives

Gaston — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 22:22:02 +0000

Those who know my photography well (all 3 of you! yay! ) will know that I have been gathering pictures of animals in their “unnatural” environment for a while now. My “Captive” series has received quite a bit of attention and has received awards, but, it doesn’t mean it is finished. I’m still working on it. So, Buenos Aires – new city, new zoo, more animal pictures. With this, I will now have pictures in this collection from four continents. So here are a few captives from Argentina:

Mercado de San Telmo

Gaston — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 21:06:19 +0000

I discovered this very interesting market today in Buenos Aires, but before I tell you about it, let me get my usual spiel about markets off my chest…

The more I travel the more I tend to avoid markets. Let me share a secret with you; nearly anywhere you go in the world, they are all the same. If it’s a food market, yeah, fruit, veggies and dead animals. And they often stink. If it’s the ever popular “artisanal” market, or “traditional arts” market, trust me, they sell the same things all around the world. This was made abundantly clear to Lars and I a few years ago when, in a market in Edmundson, New Brunswick, Canada, we found the exact same things as in artisanal markets in Latvia. And I mean exact, down to identical stitches and matching woodwork. I lived in Latvia for a long time, and they are SO proud of their artisanal markets there, but really, nothing is original anymore. So, for me, my reaction to makets is usually, oh hum, nothing special here.

BUT, today in the San Telmo neighborhood of Buenos Aires, I came upon what is probably the most unique, quirky and fun market I have ever visited. It was mostly an antiques market, but all sorts of fun stuff was mixed in there. There seems to be an unusual obsession with soda bottles here, for example. Glasswear in one stand sparkled in the sun, along with the random chandelier pieces in the next stand. I ended up nearly buying a complete collection of bound Tintin magazines from decades ago, but how would I ever have carried that back? So Tintin stays in Argentina. Coin dealers, map experts, brass knob gatherers and tin soldier enthusiasts all packed tightly in Plaza Dorrego, but still left some space for a few tango dancers to drag their feet on the cobbled stones. I would have wanted to buy so many things, odd trinkets that caught my eye, but I contented myself with a few commemorative coins with Evita Peron’s face on them. That is easy enough to carry.

What’s New?!

Gaston — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 23:21:49 +0000

Remember when Madonna played a lady who did this:

From the balcony of this house:

Well that is where I am now.

What’s new? Buenos Aires!

I’m new! Stand back you oughta know what you’re gonna get in me,

Just a little touch of star quality. (sing along!)

Erosion

Gaston — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 10:58:51 +0000

Those of you from New Brunswick might say: “Argh more pictures from Hopewell Rocks!”, since they are so ubiquitous in imagery about the province. But I am sure most of you are not at all aware of Hopewell Rocks. In southern New Brunswick, the highest tides in the world combined with some soft rock cliffs has created some unusual sculptures, the Flower Pots. I went to visit them on a very foggy day at low tide. At high-tide they are halfway under water.

Fundy – High Tides and Waterfalls

Gaston — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 10:42:32 +0000

I spent yesterday walking around Fundy National Park, on the southern coast of my native province of New Brunswick. Not much people photography going on there, I barely saw another living soul all day, unless it was a rabbit, a squirrel or a partridge. I was all alone with nature, so that is what I took pictures of. The Bay of Fundy is the site of the highest tides in the world. While I could go to the seashore in the morning, I had to escape to the mountains in the afternoon, as the beaches were drowned under many many meters of water. And after I got tired of the trees, animals, waterfalls and babbling brooks of the forests, I returned to the same beaches, wide and opened again… but just for a few hours before the tides return.