Mr Tony says relax

So after six months and 20 days I´ve finally made it to the bottom of the world. They call it the "end of the world" here, and at $2 an hour for the internet, $10 for a steak and $12 to get into the local museum they may not be wrong. It´s like the Orkney Islands have been taken over by tourist agencies and trendy young marketing executives.

But at least I can relax. From tomorrow I´ll be sleeping in the same bed for ten nights. Albeit a mobile bed navigating its way through the Southern Ocean and, hopefully, away from icebergs. But my bed has a reinforced steel hull so I´m not too worried (it also has a doctor, a historian, an ornothologist, a marine biologist, glaciolocist, mountaineer, and a full ship´s complement of seamen and women - my bed will, in fact, be a boat).

This has been a slightly cathartic experience for me. In total I´ve now done about 30,000 kilometres from near the top to the bottom of the Americas, and I´m rather pleased with myself for managing to do the entire bit from the Canadian rockies to Buenos Aires only by land and sea (taking five months at it). This morning I finally ran out of time and flew - a luxury, and cheaper (and fully 50 hours quicker) than bussing it. In truth most of the last six weeks, from Cartagena to here, has been a crazy rush. Every day something new and most nights on a bus... Would´ve been great to chill out, perhaps in Sucre, Bolivia, as a friend did - although by the looks of it she got out just in time. ("Residents' groups were patrolling the streets after police fled their posts." Never a good sign...) Anyway I´ll have plenty of time to chill out at sea.

And for the first time since St John´s, Newfoundland, I´m back on the Atlantic. Almost feels like home.

PS. Did I mention how cold it is here? 8C today, which I think is colder than home. And it´s meant to be the start of summer here...