Encounters at the End of the World Page #6

there was no further expansion possible,

and the Empire started to fade

into the abyss of history

It all looks now like an extinct supermarket

On a cultural level,

it meant the end of adventure

Exposing the last unknown spots

of this Earth was irreversible,

but it feels sad

that the South Pole or Mount Everest

were not left in peace in their dignity

It may be a futile wish

to keep a few white spots on our maps,

but human adventure, in its original sense,

lost its meaning,

became an issue for the

Guinness Book of World Records

Scott and Amundsen

were clearly early protagonists,

and from there on

it degenerated into absurd quests

A Frenchman crossed the Sahara Desert

in his car set in reverse gear,

and I am waiting for the first barefoot runner

on the summit of Everest

or the first one hopping into the South Pole

on a pogo stick

FURMAN Well, I had this idea of breaking

a Guinness record in every continent,

and Antarctica would be the sixth,

so, now I'm trying to think of a way

to get to Antarctica

Ashrita Furman did not want

to travel this way,

because he already holds a

Guinness record in this discipline

And also in this one

So, he decided upon the more prosaic

approach and took an airplane

We flew down to Antarctica

Anyway, it was thrilling

because I'm in Antarctica,

and I'm trying to break a Guinness record

Being in Antarctica

is like being on the moon

It's so I mean, it's so peaceful

It's so pure

It's so desolate

I mean, it's just a great place

HERZOG Antarctica is not the moon,

even though sometimes it feels like it

Yet, on this planet,

McMurdo comes closest to what

a future space settlement would look like

(PENGUINS CAWING)

We left McMurdo for the penguin colony

at Cape Royds

Everyone spoke about penguins,

however, the questions I had

were not so easily answered

I was referred to a penguin expert out there

who had studied them for almost 20 years

I was told that he was a taciturn man,

who, in his solitude, was not much into

conversation with humans anymore

But Dr Ainley gave his best effort

Well, here we are at Cape Royds

This is 2006,

and it's just about the 100th anniversary

of the first penguin study

that was ever done,

which was done here at Cape Royds by

a person that was part

of the Shackleton expedition

They all had a good winter,

and they're very fat

They've

claimed their territories and eggs have

been laid and females have left,

and now there's just males

that are sitting on eggs,

using their fat reserves

and waiting for females to return

to relieve them and then go to sea

I tried to keep the conversation going

Dr Ainley, I read somewhere

that there are gay penguins

What are your observations?

I've never

Or strange sexual behavior

Can you talk about

Yeah, there has been I've seen

triangular relationships where there's

one female and two males,

and the female lays the egg,

or eggs, and the males and the female

trade off over the season

There are mis-identities, initially,

of the sex of penguins

Somebody recently described

what they call prostitution where

a female, who is out

collecting rocks for her nest,

and, of course, some penguins are

The only way they collect rocks

is to steal them from others

So, in order to do that,

they have to be very submissive

in order to get close to a male,

who's maybe advertising for a mate,

and so she'll come in, sit in his nest,

and sometimes they'll copulate

But, really, her idea is to get a rock,

and so, as soon as she can,

she escapes with a rock

Dr Ainley, is there such thing

as insanity among penguins?

I try to avoid the definition of insanity

or derangement

I don't mean that a penguin

might believe he or she is Lenin

or Napoleon Bonaparte,

but could they just go crazy

because they've had enough of

their colony?

Well, I've never seen a penguin

bashing its head against a rock

They do get disoriented

They end up in places they shouldn't be,

a long way from the ocean

HERZOG These penguins are all heading

to the open water to the right

But one of them caught our eye,

the one in the center

He would neither go towards the feeding

grounds at the edge of the ice,

nor return to the colony

Shortly afterwards, we saw him heading

straight towards the mountains,

some 70 kilometers away

Dr Ainley explained

that even if he caught him

and brought him back to the colony,

he would immediately head right back

for the mountains

But why?

One of these disoriented,

or deranged, penguins

showed up at the New Harbor diving camp,

already some 80 kilometers away

from where it should be

The rules for the humans

are do not disturb or hold up the penguin

Stand still and let him go on his way

And here, he's heading off into the interior

of the vast continent

With 5,000 kilometers ahead of him,

he's heading towards certain death

The last field camp we visited

was at Mount Erebus

This active volcano is 12,500 feet high

It is of particular importance, as inside

the crater the magma of the inner earth

is directly exposed

There are only two other such volcanoes

in the world,

one in the Congo and the other in Ethiopia

Because of political strife in those places,

it is actually easier to conduct field studies

here in Antarctica

First thing, we were instructed in

the etiquette of dealing with this volcano

One very important thing to keep in mind

when you're on the crater

is that the lava lake

could explode at any time,

and if it does, it's vital to keep

your attention faced toward the lava lake

and watch for bombs

that are tracking up into the air

and try to pick out the ones that might be

coming toward you and step out of the way

The last thing you wanna do is turn away

from the crater or run or crouch down

Keep your attention toward the lava lake,

look up and move out of the way

HERZOG We were fortunate that the lava

lake was not enshrouded in mist this day

This here is the new observation camera

William Mclntosh is the leader

of the team of volcanologists here

This camera is designed for prison riots

or to be explosion proof,

and it's coated with this thick

Teflon housing

Here's the lens here This is a camera

The camera inside is made by a small

company in Canada, Extreme CCTV

The inside housing is specifically

designed for explosion

(EXPLOSION)

to be explosion-proof

There's a bang from the lava lake

right now No bombs, though

HERZOG This is the magma lake

filmed 30 years ago

At that time, there was a bold attempt

to descend into the crater

Halfway down there is a plateau

From there, it is a gaping hole straight down

into the magma

They were in for near disaster

The magma exploded, striking one of the

climbers, who got away with minor injuries

Today, the lava is monitored

by Dr Mclntosh's camera

Dr Clive Oppenheimer, a true Englishman

from Cambridge University,

surprised us with his tweed outfit, which

he wears as a tribute to the explorers of old

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