Antarctica
Their cabin was much like mine, except that it had a refrigerator. There was a stuffed penguin on the shelf and a picture of a Mercedes on the wall. They offered us chilled Stoli vodka, and sliced apples and grapes - how could we refuse?
    Chris was a good translator, and I was able to ask how things were in the former Soviet Union. Valeri said things were better now; communism had too much control over everything. Wasn't it harder now to find things, we asked? Still better, Valeri said. We shared more ideas and stories, and a lot of laughter. I found myself in amazement, thinking that five years ago none of this would have been possible. When I found out later that Leonid had poured the last of their vodka into my glass, I realized how truly lucky I was.
    The next day when we crossed the Antarctic Convergence, the line where cold Antarctic waters meet the warmer waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, I knew we were getting close. The water temperature dropped by three degrees, the air became colder, and we saw dolphins and penguins playing in the waves. Soon we spotted glacier-covered peaks in the distance, telling us we had reached the South Shetland Islands at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.
    Before long we were maneuvering through Neptune's Bellows, the narrow opening into the volcanic caldera at Deception Island. The eight mile wide caldera was formed when the island volcano collapsed, forming a crater that sank far enough to allow the sea to flood the interior. It was from Deception Island that whaler Nathaniel Palmer allegedly became the first American to sight the continent of Antarctica in 1820. The island has been the site of whaling, and later research stations, although they were abandoned in 1969 when the still active volcano erupted, dropping fiery debris on the buildings. There are hot springs in the caldera where the water is warm enough for swimming, but on occasion it becomes so hot that it can peel the paint off the bottom of a boat.
    The land looked like a moonscape when we went ashore. Because of the recent volcanic activity there was no plant life - just hills of dark ash, and a wayward chinstrap penguin somehow separated from the rookeries on the outer edges of the island. Together with the ring of snow-covered ridges, and the sheer yellow, black, and red cliffs, it was an awesome sight.