I have long held the belief that washing machines can on occasion become accidental portals, which in turn allows travel to other dimensions. It would explain the missing sock phenomena which states that given enough time, you’ll end up with just one half of each pair.

A possible explanation for this, may be due to the centrifugal forces that are created inside a washing machine when it is in spin mode. That, and the combination of all the amazing advancements they’ve integrated into washing powders to give us cleaner than clean clothes. Together. they may be powerful enough to create mini worm wholes, large enough, that something like a sock could disappear in to it. It’s also possible that larger items of clothing might disappear in the same fashion. But because they usually don’t come in pairs, we rarely notice that they were gone in the first place.

A universe filled with missing socks

In other words, it’s more than likely that a universe, in a dimension other than ours, has been turned in to some kind of giant landfill, full of unmatched socks and other missing items.

It then raises the question, if we can build a washing machine big enough, could we send a person through it? And who would volunteer? There’d be no guarantee that one would be able to return back to our world. And spending the rest of you life between mismatched socks is hardly anyone’s idea of paradise.

Traveling back and forth between dimensions

Well, since yesterday, I may have proof that two way travel between our dimensions is possible! Bear with me: I’ve been missing a pair gloves for over a year now. Yesterday, I decided to conduct a full scale search party in the hopes of finding them, but to no avail. Failing to find them, I decided to collect the clothing items that needed to be cleaned, and placed them in my washing machine.

This morning, as I proceeded to empty it, I was surprised to find my missing gloves between the rest of my clothes! The only plausible explanation is that they traveled more than a year ago to another dimension, and then returned this very morning. Two-way inter-dimensional travel therefore must be possible! I can’t imagine the things my gloves have seen, the places they’ve been. But they did return in good condition, so I imagine that were ever went to, it can’t be that hostile for man.

A small spin for man, a giant cleaning for mankind

So if anyone has any ideas on how to build a giant washing machine, it would be greatly appreciated. For if all goes well, it’s very likely we may be on the verge of discovering new worlds and other dimensions. Or at the very least, all our missing socks.

A young man sitting in a departure hall – hurting over broken dreams – is approached by a traveling salesman. With him, he carries a unique proposition: he sells the future. The young man, skeptical of what he is being offered, and puzzled how seeing the future could possibly repair events gone wrong in the past, takes a peak into our salesman’s attaché case. His face turns to amazement.

At this point, I was expecting a MacGuffin, a term coined by Alfred Hitchcock. It’s a plot device that has no other use than to further the story along. So I was expecting a Pulp Fiction moment, were the case is opened and starts emitting a golden glow as bystanders look at its content in amazement. But to us, the viewer, the contents is never revealed. It’s merely a prop that gives its characters a reason worth killing for. So in the end, it doesn’t matter if it is gold or a fresh batch of tasty Royale with cheese.

So great was my surprise that in this little short, we actually afforded a peek inside the case. And I have to admit that I too watched in amazement. He actually was selling the future. Our young man decides to seize the moment, but at what cost?

I’ve always had this nagging feeling that certain places, even though they are physically quite close, always seemed to be so far away. Further even than distant places, simply because they are more time consuming to reach thanks to a lack of direct highways or too many traffic lights along the way.

So while the shortest route between two points may be a straight line, the quickest route on the other hand is determined by the fastest mode of transportation at your disposal. To illustrate this, I created a time travel map that positions cities relative to Brussels based on how long it takes to reach them using only public transportation.

The first striking thing is the effect of high speed train travel. Distant places such as London, Paris, and, in a few days from now, Amsterdam, are now a lot closer to Brussels than ever before. With Thalys and the Euro-Star, Paris is actually seems easier to reach than many places within Belgium. It’s actually quicker to reach Amsterdam with the Thalys, even though it is more than 200km’s away from Brussels, than it is to get to Riemst at only half that distance from the capital.

The time distortions between near by areas can be quite great too. Take for example Hasselt where I live. It’s just under an hour away from Brussels thanks to a direct train line. Zonhoven, which neighbors Hasselt and is only slightly further away from Brussels, but doesn’t have its own train station. So travelers to this town need to switch to a bus on their last leg of their journey. The result of this is that it actually takes them longer to get home than for a Parisian to get back to Paris.

And if you live in Peer, but work in Brussels, you better make sure you have a car. Otherwise you might as well move to Amsterdam if you have to rely on public transportation. I’m also glad I don’t live in Chimay, though this map might explain why they had to brew their own beer. It simply took them too long to get their alcoholic nourishments elsewhere.

While this is not a travel map, but a travel graph, the distance between Brussels and Amsterdam is relative to the transportation mode used.

Of course, this is a static time map. A true time map would naturally have to be dynamic. It would have to be linked to GPS, so if I were in Hasselt, all cities would be positioned relative to my new position. It would also need to be time sensitive. During rush hours, Brussels for example would then grow further away from me as traffic jams would increase the time to get there. For a public transportation based map, a city would grow closer by the second until the next scheduled bus or train arrived. If however you missed it, and there is for example only one bus, your destination would all of a sudden jump an extra hour away from you.

If this data was made public and easy to access, It would make for a nice up to date interactive map you can always carry with you on a smart phone.

One might think that time travel is difficult at best and impossible at worst, but it’s not. It’s actually quite easy to accomplish. The most widely used method of time travel today is called growing old. We do it all the time.

The Dangers of Time Travel

If on the other hand, you want to travel back in time, that’s a whole different challenge. So let us assume we’re going to build a time machine that will let us do just that. How do we test it to make sure it works? Unless of course you want to be the guinea pig and risk ending up in a time or place that might not be so hospitable to your fragile existence. You wouldn’t be the first time traveler to end up frozen in the middle of space, due to the small oversight of earths moving trajectory around the sun, and the relative motion of the solar system within mind puzzling accelerated expansion of the larger universe. But let us not worry about that for now.

One theory states that even if a time machine were built, you would still not be able to time travel to an age prior to the existence of your workable machine. It was proposed as a reason why time travelers have not come back from the future so far, for lack of a vessel present in this day and age to do so. It also prevents you from going back in time and killing yourself before you were able to actually build your time machine, thus making it impossible to travel back in time to kill yourself in the first place, and creating a temporal rupture in the fabric of the space time continuum that could possibly destroy the entire universe. In other words, before we can bump into other time travelers or create utterly destructive paradoxes, we first have to build a time machine.

Build a Time Machine

Let’s start small. A box the size of a small box will do. As for the creation of your machine, a quick search on the internet should do the trick. Plenty of recipes exist such as: bending the space time continuum, creating worm holes, or accelerating your box to 88mph using a flux capacitor and bolts of lightning. (On a side note: It was once possible to buy nuclear grade plutonium from Libyan terrorists to power flux capacitors , but that no longer is an option as Libya has abandoned and disassembled its nuclear program). Also make sure to check Wikipedia as they have some wonderful theories on how to avoid the problem I mentioned earlier about the world being in motion which in turn ups the risk of ending up in space.

Testing the Time Machine

Once your time machine is ready, testing it should be fairly easy. Close the box. Switch it on. Write down the current time and date. We may need this later. Then open the box. If the box remains empty, the experiment failed and it is not yet suitable as a vessel for future operators to send things back in time with it. You may need to make some modifications or maybe even give it a good bang with the hammer. But whatever happens, don’t give up.

If on the other hand, you were to find, for example, an apple in your box, then chances are, your time machine works. Congratulations! Victory dance! However, exercise caution if the object inside the box happens to be Schrödinger’s cat; perhaps alive; perhaps dead. In the best case, Schrödinger may not be too pleased you stole his cat in this way. In the worst case, what you may have here may not be a time machine, but rather an infinite improbability drive. Before fiddling any further with it, I would advise you to first purchase either the latest edition of The Lonely Universe or a copy of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. You’ll need it just in case something goes horribly wrong and you find yourself on the other side of the Milky Way. As a matter of fact, get both books. While the latter will be quite informative on your predicament, The Lonely Universe will list all the cheapest places to stay and eat whenever you find yourself in deep space. But I’m running astray. To get back to our test and keep things simple, we’re sticking to an apple as an example. Take it out of your time machine and close it.

The Final Step

Now that we’ve managed to create a working time machine, that doesn’t mean the test is over. Hell no! We still need to place the object back into the box, and preferably somewhere in the future, so we can find it in the past at the moment we started conducting the test. Failing to complete this last step would leave us with the puzzling question as to where the apple came from and how it got into our time machine in the first place.

If you’ve created one of those fancy time machines with a built in interface to enter the destinations date and time coordinates, input that data in right now. If on the other hand, you’ve left out such sophistications, cross your fingers and hope for the best. Now zap that apple back into the past. If you reopen it, the box should be empty again concluding a successful time travel test. Cause enough for another victory dance.

Check List

This test should be repeated every time one builds a new time machine or to check if an existing one is still in working condition. And if you really want to be scientifically professional, here’s a quick check list:

1. Make sure the time machine is empty before starting the test, then close its door.

2. Switch on the time machine.

3. Write down the current time and date.

4. Open the door.

5. Take out the apple.

6. Close the door.

7. Wait thirty minutes. In the mean time, DO NOT EAT THE APPLE!

8. Open the door.

9. Place the apple back into the time machine.

10. Close the door.

11. Enter the time and date coordinates written down in step 3.

12. Send the apple back into time.

13. Open the door and attain that the apple is no longer there.

14. The test has successfully been completed.

15. Perform a victory lap.

For laughs, most time travelers will usually do this test using either an egg, or a chicken, depending on whatever appears first.

Remembering Chittagong, Bangladesh

Some ships meet their fate at the bottom of the ocean. Others continue sailing, long exceeding their expiry date, or are docked as museum pieces for the generations to come. But for most ships, their demise is spelled on the beaches of the poorest nations. In particular: the shorelines of Chittagong, the southernmost province of Bangladesh.

I was reminded of this place when seeing the photographic series of ‘Manufactured Landscapes’ by Edward Burtynsky. He has created fascinating photo essays on how mankind’s industrial hunger has radically altered our landscapes into beautifully disturbing places.  (His website unfortunately doesn’t allow direct links to the ship breaking series, so to get there, pick: works > ships > shipbreaking. His other series are also well worth visiting).

But it was thanks to a recent reunion with a classmate from my Bangladeshi days, that brought back many of my memories from that time.

A School Field Trip

It must have been in ’86 when my class traveled from Dhaka to Chittagong by train. Twenty-three years later, many of the details escape me. I can’t quite remember if this particular trip was supposed to have any educational value, nor whether we ended up in a guesthouse near Chittagong city or Cox Bazar, a place situated on the longest natural beach in the world. But what I do remember is this trip was fun. It was one filled with many firsts for me. For it was here were I was introduced to ‘UNO’. Easy to learn, and playable with many, it’s the one card game I almost always take with me when I travel.

More importantly though – and with a class of pre-adolescent teens whose hormones were starting to kick in – we discovered there was more to the opposite sex than we had been led to believe. And so we took our first clumsy steps in flirting with each other through elaborate paper counting games that would help us predict our future partners. The rules of which are now lost on me, but I’m sure it’s still played today by the upcoming youth. And as if that wasn’t enough, we even went to the trouble of organizing an ad-hoc dance party one night. Missing the proper ingredients to successfully pull such a thing off, such us proper mood lighting, we huddled into a small dark room, where we silently danced, so that we could here a puny sound coming off of the speakers of a small walkman someone had brought along. By all objective metrics, it was a disaster. But that wasn’t the point. When The Eye of the Tiger or Tarzan Boy played, all was good. We were having fun and that all that mattered.

It was also here were I learnt to spin the bottle and play truth or dare. It was even thanks to these very likable games that I was first kissed. Looking back, it was all very innocent of course. But at the same time, very new and exciting as well. It was just a matter of time, but by the end of the trip, the first couple of our class had formed.

A Hike to the Beach

It was during this trip – one late afternoon – that our chaperones took us out on a hike. We trekked over rolling hills covered by lush and green grass. Peering over hills and cliffs, the surrounding views were magnificent. Walking between natures untouched vastness, it was hard not to feel incredibly small and meaningless. It was a humbling experience.
If I have a penchant of traveling to weird and strange places, then this is probably where I got my first taste. For it was on these hills that I discovered the romance of travel. I’ve been pursuing it ever since.

As we walked closer to the coast, the Indian Ocean started to appear along the distant horizon. As we reached a cliff overlooking the shore line, the sun started to set. It was a dreamy and surreal sight to behold. At low tide, we stood before an almost endless and deserted beach. On it laid these two huge and rusty old ships – like fish out of water – and in a stage of decay. They had been brought here to die.

Although the clues were there, it’s not something I could have witnessed during a single sunset. But what happens here is the industrial equivalent of nature at work. The local villagers, using only their bare hands, will – like little creatures – crawl over these gigantic carcasses. As the oil – like blood –spills over and onto the beaches, they are slowly, bit by bit, torn apart, until over a period of weeks and months, nothing of these mighty ships are left.¹

Recycling to Survive

For me, the fact of seeing these ships in a place where they normally wouldn’t belong was amazement enough. If our teachers hadn’t stopped us, we would have probably turned them into a huge playground.

And although I knew they would eventually vanish, little did I realize the scale and endeavor neded to undertake such a job of breaking down a ship. Especially with the little means they had available to them. But then, by then, I had taken for granted that everything in Bangladesh got recycled. This was long before such behavior became fashionable in the west. Of course, this was not done out of any environmental concerns, but pure out of necessity to survive. Like the little children that would daily roam our neighborhood in Dhaka, carrying jute bags and filling them with any litter they could find. What ever they found would then be sold off to be recycled. Despite the lack of proper municipal services, our streets were always clean and for many, this was their way of staying alive. Witnessing this from the other side of the divide, I knew early on that I was in a privileged position.

And so upon our return to the guesthouse and sheltered lives, our only worry was organizing a party that night. The only thing we had to concern ourselves with was being the children we were, trying hard to grow up in a place where ships were sent to die.

¹) In Lord of War – a film about an opportunistic weapons dealer fueling the fires of war– a similar scene is depicted. Only here, we’re in Africa where an airplane is being dismantled overnight by the locals.

While my travels are usually measured in days or weeks, most of the other travelers I’ve encountered during my journeys were usually on the trail for months on end, and sometimes even years. It requires a completely different pace of life. It’s a lifestyle in itself. For if you’re not pressed for time, the slower you travel, the cheaper you can live.

The article ‘How to travel the world for free‘, goes on to explains how one can explore our planet with just pennies in your pocket. Though I have some doubts if it can really be done completly for free; you can probably go a long way if your goal  is to immerse yourself in the different cultures and customs you may encounter during your travels, while skipping the hightlights and tourist hotspots.

We find ourselves in the city of Gothia, where Jasper Morello, the navigational aeronaut aboard an airship, is sent out on a mission to layout a new trading route. Half way through, the trip goes horribly wrong and they must abandon ship, making their way through uncharted territory. To add to his troubles, Jasper discovers his beloved wife, whom he has had to leave behind in Gothia, has become deadly sick. But can he still return home in time to save her, and if so, at what cost?

This is a beautifully animated short with a strong and engaging story line. The narration is simply well done. And while it makes extensive use of CGI, it has been fashioned in the old Indonesian style of silhouette theatre, giving it a very distinct and moody look. It was nominated for an Oscar in 2004. Though I still haven’t seen them, three other sequels have been made since then, detailing the explorations of Jasper Morello. This animation is almost half an hour long, but it’s defiantly worth the time.

The animation is just short of half an hour long, but it is definitely worth experiencing.

Traveling through the Yunnan province in China left me with a lot of mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was a wonderful experience and I’m glad I did it. With most of the Chinese ethnic minorities living here, there is a very rich mix of cultures to be found here. It’s a place filled with centuries old traditions and ways of living, while at the same time, it is also in constant transformation as it clashes with the new, more modern and bolder China. Sometimes positive, sometimes negative.

On the other hand, the whole trip was also mentally and physically very straining. Many of the people here are very poor and live in crowded and filthy conditions. Despite having grown up in some of the least developed nations on this planet, even I wasn’t prepared for the culture shock I had to experience in the rural areas. And so after three weeks, I was glad to be going home to some peace, quiet and personal space.

But before we left, we went off to see one more show in Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan. It was a dance performance by a group called Dynamic Yunnan and choreographed by Yang Liping (杨丽萍). She is known in China for her Peacock Dance which she performed as well. Inspired by the traditional music and dances from around the province, she had created about ten different dance acts, but each time with a modern twist to it. It was an impressive spectacle with at times over forty dancers on stage. It’s quite possible that the story line connecting all the different dances into something meaningful (the use of colors seemed to indicate as such), but even after three weeks, my Chinese wasn’t up to speed yet.

There were guards present in the theater preventing anyone from filming anything. But I did manage to find a few fragments of the show online. The Moon Dance was the second act. Yang Liping herself is the silhouette in the  performance. Though the quality isn’t that great, here is another act I enjoyed: Country of Daughters. Strange, yes, but I particularly like the costumes and almost hypnotic music that went with it. And thanks to the internet, I also now what they were singing about. The lyrics:

The sun wants to rest, it can rest.
The moon wants to rest, it can rest.
Women want to rest, they can’t rest.*
If women rest, the fire will burn out.

Cold wind blows at the elderly, and women use their backs to block it.
Splinter in child’s feet, and women use their heart to pad it.
If there is a woman there, the old and the young will stay together.
If there is a woman there, the mountain may crumble and men will hold it up.

If there is no women under the heavens, the sky will not light.
If there is no women on the earth, the grass will not grow.
If a man does not have a woman, the man will be ill.
If there is no women under the heavens, there will be no men.

The performance in general was of a very high standard. It was nothing like the Yunnan I had seen in the past three weeks. It did however remind me of some of the Chinese films of recent, such as ‘Hero’ (mind fight) and ‘House of Flying Daggers’ (Beauty Dance & Echo Game). After having seen Dynamic Yunnan, I was at least able to leave China on a positive note. And with that, I leave you with the Two Tree dance.

* While it is true that in many places around the world — especially where poverty prevails — society would come to a complete standstill if it were not for the hard work of women; It was a strange discovery to bicycle into one of the villages just outside of old town Dali where we found the gender roles had been switched. Within this Naxi ethnic minority, it’s the women who are in charge. While they hang out on the streets gossiping and enjoying the care free life, it is up to the men to do the house keeping and take care of the children.

I came across this touching animation of a couple reliving their glory days as tango performers. A time before the ‘accidente tragico’. En Tus Brazos is a French production, but with Spannish spoken.

Though I never did enjoye any glory days as a tango dansers myself (let alone that I can actually dance the tango), it did bring back some memories of my trip to Argentina two years ago.

A Tango Show in Buenos Aires

It was never my intention to spend more than two nights in Buenos Aires. But somehow, the weather gods seemed to favor me, letting me complete my travels through southern Patagonia in just two weeks instead of three. With days to spare, I decided to return to Buenos Aires early. At first, I regretted my choice. I felt alienated by the beautiful facades of this old city, but also by the cold welcome I had received from the others back at the hostel. It was as if the life had been sucked out of them and as a result preferred to keep to themselves. Traveling on your own, can sometimes be lonely.

The next day, I learnt that most of them had left, traveling to numerous other destinations far far away. They were replaced by a new crop of backpackers; a much more livelier bunch this time around. Things were starting to look up. By the end of the second day, I had made a lot of new friends. And with them, I started to discover Buenos Aires beyond its facades. A city that had a lot more to offer than met the eye. The stories I could tell…

But lets not get carried away. This post is about tango.

BA is known for its long tango tradition. It’s where it was born. During my visit, there were plenty of opportunities to see the locals dancing it. Even in the main shopping street, one could regularly run into street artists tangoing away. I just had the unlucky misfortune of bumping into them every time as they were about to commence with their last dance act: a guy doing the tango with a doll. While funny to watch, it wasn’t exactly what I had imagined the dance to be. I could not leave this city without having seen the most passionate dance invented by man in its propper form. And judging from all the lovers I witnessed openly kissing in the streets and parks of BA, I could only conclude that the Argentineans are very passionate people. They’ve made it into an art form.

On my fourth day there, I decided to go to a tango show with Annabelle, a wonderful and remarkable person I had met at our hostel. She was an Irish/German girl studying in London and living in Ibiza with aspirations of becoming a fashion designer. One couldn’t dream of better company.

We had made some last minute reservations earlier that day after hearing it would be the last show of the season. And after taking a short taxi ride, we arrived at the venue just in the nick of time. As a hostess escorted us to our place, we quickly realized that this was no ordinary theatre. Instead of just rows and rows of chairs like everywhere else, we found ourselves seated in front of a table for two with a small lamp shade on it. Placed there just to give us that extra touch of atmosphere in an otherwise darkened venue. All very cozy. Moments later, our exotic cocktails were served. It was like being invited to an exclusive ballroom party. You felt special, just by sitting here. Soon afterwards, our lampshades dimmed. All eyes turned towards the stage. The show was about to begin.

It was a dance musical, an Argentinean West Side Story as it were. In fact, there was a time when Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world, with emigrants arriving from all over. They came with their hopes and dreams for a better future. Some would make it big. Most probably didn’t. It was amongst the poor of lower class Buenos Aires that tango would see the light of day. It was a dance that somehow unified the emigrants of different nationalities; a dance  that took on many styles and variations, but also took years and dedication to learn and master. For men at the time, it was a way of meeting women. And with women in the minority in this new found world, they danced only with those whom they felt mastered it well enough.

In the musical, we were introduced to an immigrant family arriving in BA: Girl meets boy. Boy falls in love. Is poor, but tries to win her heart. Meanwhile, rich underworld figure falls for the same girl. Jealousy ensues. Knives are drawn. Things get out of hand. People die. All in the name of love. But the dancing was superb. I always had this cliché image of Tango being danced between two lovers, slow and passionate one moment, swift and almost cold the next. What I saw here was something completely different. The leg work alone was amazing to watch. Two dancers: their legs locking, clicking, kicking and unlocking again, all at the blink of an eye. As they danced, we were treated to extremely fast, yet graceful movements. These were pros and tango was much more then what I had imagined it to be. I was impressed.

But it wouldn’t be the last time I’d see tango in Buenos Aires…

Tango in La Boca

La Boca, while charming with its colorful buildings, is not the sort of place you want to visit alone. Located in one of the poorer parts of Buenos Aires, it is best described as an oasis surrounded by criminality. Any tourist attempting to leave its confines is surely asking to be robbed. It literary is a tourist trap. But despite the warnings, it’s still a must see destination and so I went together with Ben and Catherine, two Americans students on a short leave in Argentina. Even though it only was a walking distance away from San Telmo, where our hostel was located, we were advised to take the taxi instead. And so we did.

It was a hot and sunny day with the pace of life slow. We strolled around the streets for a while, admiring the colorful architecture and peeping into the little tourist shops. But with La Boca being so small, It didn’t take long before we had seen everything there was to see. At least without venturing off into dangerous territory. So we decided to have lunch instead. La Boca has quite a lot of restaurants to choose from, and each one offers a tango dance display while you enjoy your meal.

We ate outside on the pavement. Between the tables, a couple in full dress played their part and danced the Tango. One could easily believe that this was all part of the ‘couleur locale’, if it were not for the woman dancer who looked strikingly Japanese.

And just like the life around us, the pace of their movements were much slower, but more casual then what I had seen at the theatre a few days earlier. Here were just two people dancing the afternoon away, and not so much to impress, but simply because it was something they just loved to do.

Looking back, I wish I had brought my camera along with me. But by the time I had arrived in Buenos Aires, I was already suffering from photo-fatique. I just wanted to experience things without having to photograph it all. Catherine did bring hers along and we were even given the honour of posing with the dancers that had entertained us thru lunch. (If you’re tourist in a tourist trap, you might aswell act the part). We then returned to San Telmo.

My week soon came to an end, and I left with mostly fond memories. But if I ever return, it might well be worth learning a step or two of tango. How hard could it possibly be?

Belgium has just opened the Princess Elisabeth Station in Antarctica. It’s the first ever zero-emission base on the continent. Not only is it powered by wind and solar energy, but it also recycles its waste products.
But how did the Belgians end up in Antarctica in the first place? Apparently, I don’t have to look much further then my own hometown, Hasselt.

It’s quite possible that there are more statues present in the inner city of Hasselt then people actually living here. The most famous statue known here is that of Hendrik and Katrien. They spend most of their time sitting together in the main square. Though there are many more worth mentioning, it’s something for a later post. But I mention this, because many years ago, I was asked to create a design for the website for the city of Hasselt. At one point, the tourist cell gave me photo’s of some of these statues I could use in my designs. I knew all of them except for one. At first I thought it was an homage to some prominent military figure. But when I dared to ask who he was, I got surprised looks. How could I not know who he was? It was Adrien De Gerlache of course! He was one of the most famous inhabitants of our town. I was still clueless.

It turned out that he organized the first purely scientific expedition to Antarctica in 1898 while commanding the ship the Belgica. What was known of Antarctica up until then, had only been explored by mostly whale and seal hunters who were only interested in the region for economic gain. De Gerlache on the other hand managed to gather together a remarkable team of international experts and scientists; the most notable crewmember being the Norwegian Roald Amundsen. He would eventually become the most famous polar explorer of all time. After his adventures in the Belgica and the experience he gained there, he would later return to Antarctica to become the first man to ever reach the actual South Pole.

Although it’s not known if it was De Gerlaches intention all along (some suspect it was), but the Belgica did manage to get itself stranded in the Antarctic ice. As a result, it would become the first expedition ever to spend a whole winter in the Antarctic south. And despite the pressures and harsh conditions they were subjected too, they meticulously continued doing scientific studies during all these dark months. Isolated from the rest of the world and cramped in closed quarters, it was thanks to the efforts of Frederick Cook, the onboard doctor, that many of the crew survived and kept their sanity.

The area of Antarctica that they surveyed back in the day is the same area where much of the growing Antarctic tourism industry is concentrated today. These mostly consist of cruises along the islands and coasts of the Antarctic peninsula. Trips usually last about ten days. The passangers sleep onboard the ships, but they do get to make landings up to twice a day on the islands, and where possible, on the continent itself. Of course, it is not without danger. Turns out we would be the last to ever sail to Antarctica with the expedition ship: the MS Explorer. On it’s return journey to Antarctica a few months later, it hit an iceberg and sank. Everyone was resqued but cruise ships do regularly get in trouble in this area.

Anyway. Belgium would later return to Antarctica in 1957 with their own polar station: The King Boudewijn Base. The mission was led by one of De Gerlache’s sons: Gaston De Gerlache. Unfortunately, the station had to be abandoned just after a few years of use. Because it was built on ice, that not only was slowly drifting out to sea, the heat produced by the base made the ice underneath it melt. As a result, it sank deeper and deeper away. Add to that the layers of new snow that was piling up on top of the base, and it was in real danger of eventually being crushed. It was however thanks to this mission that Belgium became one of the twelve founding members of the Antarctic Treaty. In simple terms, the treaty states that Antarctica belongs to no nation and must be used for peaceful purposes and for the good of mankind. And that any scientific knowledge gained here must freely be exchanged with its member states.

How did the Antarctic Treaty come to be? The members at the time couldn’t come to a settlement as to how to divide the southernmost continent amongst themselves. But because no nation actually had the technology to mine any of the possible resources under the immensely thick layers of ice, they decided to resolve this prickly problem at a later date. And so a fifty year moratorium was initiated and the Antarctic Treaty was born. The moratorium however ends in 2011 at which point the treaty may be changed. With the recent race to clame underwater regions in the North Pole area, it remains to be seen how this will all unfold. But with a bit of luck, Antarctica will remain a protected region.

In the mean time and with the lessons learnt from their previous adventure, the Belgians have returned half a century later with a new base: The Princess Elisabeth polar station. This time, it was built on solid rock much deeper inland in Uststeinen. Because Antarctica is plagued by regular snowstorms, the new station has been aerodynamically designed to prevent snow from heaping up against or over it. In other words, it shouldn’t drift out to sea, sink in the ice or get covered by snow like did the last one. In doing so, it should last at least 25 years after which it will be broken down to be brought back to Belgium.

But they have also gone a step further then just protecting the base from its environment. One of the main goals was to keep the impact on its surroundings as low as possible. It’s basically a passive house that is so well insulated, it remains at a constant temperature of 18 to 20 degrees Celsius. And although there is a backup diesel generator, the station relies on solar panels and wind turbines for energy. This has the added advantage that transporting fuel like anything else to Antarctica is massively expensive. Waste is recycled as much as possible. While this wasn’t always the case, nowdays, its frowned upon to use Antarctica as a waste dump.

The station itself will of course be used for scientific studies and most likely to further measure the effects of global warming on our planet.

If I had the chance, I would return to Antarctica in heart beat. So just in case they should have a spare bed left open, I’m more than willing to fill it. Maybe even as a concierge keeping an eye on the place during the Antarctic winter months perhaps?