Just one day there and off to Dome C we go with just a stopover in Mid-Point Charlie where a few Americans are running experiments in the miserable cold and wind. I arrived in Dome C 4 days only after leaving Italy, having changed time zone 6 times and blasted by the altitude. After a couple days I managed to find all my equipment scattered in different parts of the station and began to put it together. I set up my equipment in a lonely tent, half a km south of the station. They have welded together a bunch of containers to make extra rooms, a hospital, a bathroom, a decent kitchen, a living room and the radio communication room.
Some people barely go out of it at all.
Talking about people, there's a lot more than 3 years ago, about 30 to 45, depending on the twin-otter flights and the arrivals of the traverse. Polar exploration is not what it used to be. Nowadays the worst things are the sometimes unbearable heat in the sleeping tents and how much weight you put on during a stay. Long gone is the time of Nansen , Shackelton , Amundsen and Scott . Although I doubt I would have been more sick on the Fram , the Endurance or the Discovery than on the Astrolabe or the Italica , but the travels are going faster.