Antarctic & South America Trip Photos

I posted a few pics of my recent trip to South America and Anarctica on the "Who Knew - South American Plants" thread and since there was quite a bit of interest in seeing more, I thought I'd start a new thread with a bit more descriptive title. I hope I'm not breaking the list rules by putting these in this forum.

Almost all the plants we saw were familiar to me and have a I lot of them in my gardens in Houston. Lots of impatiens, agapanthus, hibiscus, lantana, turk's cap, petunias, ixora, and bougainvilla. Of course, all this was in South America, not Antarctica. Most of what we saw as we got further south was grasses and moss, and not a lot of that.

Lots of marine life including humpback whales, minke whales, dolphins, leopard seals, fur seals, giant southern petrals, frigate birds, rheas (ostrich like bird), 5 kinds of penguins, several kinds of albatross and cormorants and on and on.

Hope you enjoy the pics.
Crow

Seals and cormorants.

Ice Mountains.

Water, mountains, ice, sky and clouds all seem to seamlessly merge in this photo. You have to really look to tell where the ice mountains end and the sky and clouds start. I love the atmospheric quality in this one. It's unbelievable how clear the sky is down there. Guess it's a reminder of what everything could look like with less pollution.

One more mountain/ice/ocean.

Leopard Seal. You can see the wake from our ship in the bottom of the pic. It didn't seem to bother him any. I think he'd just finished feasting on penguins.

Penguins.

Lots of penguins. Just F.Y.I. (my husband thinks it's weird that I have relayed this bit of info, but I thought it was funny) penguins poop pink! Who knew?

To help get an idea of scale, look closely at this picture and you can see red building on the lower left. This is a scientific research station. The buildings look like little dots when compared to the towering mountains and ice behind them.

Glacier and ice strewn water.

Close enough to touch, a penguin mom and her two babies. Wouldn't you know they were all camera shy and hid their faces just before we clicked? The babies are molting and just getting their adult plumage in, so that's why they look fuzzy on parts and not on others.

Jackfruit tree in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This shot was taken from a tram car going up the mountain to see Christ The Redeemer statue that overlooks Rio.

I have so many wonderful pics from this trip. Most are of Antarctica with a few from the towns we visited. After seeing Antarctica, we didn't take many pics of the towns because they just didn't seem that impressive. It's hard to top Mother Nature! This pic is of the world's southernmost lighthouse. I'll stop here unless someone wants to see more. I do have some of tablular icebergs that are several square miles in area and over 120 above the water line, but you really can't get any idea of scale, so they just look like blue ice cubes floating in the ocean. The bulk of the pics are of ice and mountains and while they're all beautiful, I'm not sure how many someone else like to see before it becomes "just another mountain". Trust me when I say it was breathtaking when seeing it in person! ( I think I may have posted this one on the other thread too, sorry if it's a duplicate.)

Hope you enjoy the pics.
Crow

Next trip, I want to go to Iceland, Greenland and the Norweigian Fjords!

Beautiful!

Can't believe that building!!!! Or the camera shy penquins, so cute!

Thanks, Aimee. How you feelin' today?

Awesome!! Absolutely awesome! Thanks for posting those - I'm going back to open them all up again and get a better look.

Crow, the mountains and the wildlife are awe inspiring, thank you for posting the pictures.
Josephine.

Linda - I just shared your pics with my DH - he enjoyed them so much! Loved the scenery and the penguins. So glad your trip was so wonderful.

Glad everyone has enjoyed the pics. Thanks for all the positive comments. It was such an amazing place that I just couldn't help wanting to share some of the pics.

Crow