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Antarctica is a continent at the end of the world, or rather another world beyond the world’s end as they use to say at the southern tip of South America. There in the White South, beyond the Antarctic Convergence that runs across three oceans to mark the physical boundary of Antarctica, is the Bulgarian base St. Kliment Ohridski on Livingston Island in the Antarctic Peninsula region of Western Antarctica.

People still know little about that continent. It is the highest, driest and coldest place on earth, a land of penguins, seals, glaciers and icebergs, stretching over a vast area of 14 million square kilometres around the South Pole. A continent where few people have had the chance to step on and get touched by its beauty.

The first Antarctic discovery was that of South Georgia Island by the Englishman Anthony de la Roché in 1675. Livingston Island was discovered in 1819 by the Englishman William Smith, and one year later the Russians Fabian von Bellingshausen and Mihail Lazarev discovered the continent itself.

Joining the team of the 11th Bulgarian Antarctic expedition I left for the Ice Continent on February 11, 2003. Naturally, each of us had one’s own personal expectations. Even if it was a sudden, unforeseen trip for me, as a result of which I would be missing a full month of my school term, I nevertheless felt happy to see a child dream of mine coming true – setting my foot on the Antarctic ice.

On that day, the six of us setting off for the far south included deputy foreign minister Katya Todorova, responsible for Antarctica in the Bulgarian government; my father Lyubomir Ivanov, member of the interministerial Working group on Antarctica and chairman of the Antarctic Place Names Commission; Miroslav Sevlievski, member of the Bulgarian Parliament; Atanas Budev, Bulgarian ambassador to Argentina; Rozalina Doychinova from the Foreign Ministry; TV journalist Albena Vodenicharova and her cameraman; and myself, a student of the First English Language High School in Sofia and the first Bulgarian student to take part in an Antarctic expedition. Another