The ship departed in November from Ushuaia, Argentina, a metal-roofed town packed with souvenir shops and patrolled by fat stray dogs. Guests convened at a hilltop hotel that looked from below like a prison, but revealed, under its brutalist facade, ornate glass-walled ballrooms and a soaking tub in every room. After a buffet of Dungeness salad, smoked salmon, and a dozen varieties of pastry, we met our expedition leader, a British former science teacher who would be navigating our route in real-time. His name was Michael Jackson, a fact that seemed to weary him greatly. Unfortunately for Michael Jackson, nobody called him anything but his full name for the rest of the trip.
The next day, we left port. My room aboard the National Geographic Explorer—a former mail ship from Norway, repurposed for the other pole—had a large window, blackout curtains for the bright night, a zodiac-shaped stress ball, and a bottle of Champagne. Our Drake crossing was mild, as far as Drake crossings go, and I slept through most of it, aided by antihistamines. I woke occasionally to shuffle down the bucking hallways at mealtime for spaghetti with butter, the only food I could stomach.
Thirty-six hours later, we entered a new world. White specks on the horizon grew to surround us with grotesques of ice. People ran to the deck, gasping. What looked like a school of flying fish turned out to be penguins, leaping from the water in successive waves. The cold air felt good on my face. Familiar. Like home.
This was real. I was here. And I was overwhelmed by an unexpected feeling.
Failure.
I’m used to traveling by dog. Fighting through blizzards, breaking trail on foot, sleeping tentless in the snow. At the end of each trek, whether it’s 40 or 1,000 miles, it feels like my team and I have learned something intimate about the land we crossed—and like we earned that knowledge, and our presence, with each hard-won step.
I’d expected that if I ever made it to Antarctica, the journey would be similar. But now? I’d napped in crisp sheets; I’d drunk Champagne. I had a zodiac-shaped stress ball. I had been–for lack of a better word–soft. To be clear, I felt no judgment for my co-passengers; the only failure on the ship, in my mind, was myself. I’m proud of my skills as an adventurer. How could I enjoy Antarctica unearned? I may have been in the footsteps of Amundsen and Shackleton, but I felt nothing like them at all.
It occurs to me now that maybe reaching Antarctica was so emotional for me that my brain reverted to a more familiar space–self-criticism–rather than overload. Either way, I saw the irony even then. There may be few self-judgments more absurd than struggling to appreciate some of the greatest scenery on earth because you’re disappointed in yourself for not dogsledding to the South Pole—which you’ve never tried to do, and which is also illegal.* I took a slow breath, unwound my self-absorption, and peered down at the leaping penguins, pledging to see the trip not for what I wasn’t but for what it was.
