Where am I?

On my way south again!

Punta Arenas is a small city on the southern tip of Chile, that's where I'm staying at the moment whilst I wait for the weather to fly across the Drake passage to Rothera Research Station on the Antarctic Peninsula. As you can see from the map, I'm not going as far south as I was last year at Halley. In the rest of Antarctica the peninsula is known as the 'banana belt' as it's actually not that cold at all! Summer temperatures rarely drop far below zero and even in winter (winter temperatures have risen by almost 6 degrees Celcius over the past 50 years or so) it's often warm enough to safely lick metal. Is this the real Antarctic? Who cares...it has mountains a plenty and I've packed my snowboard...bring it on!