Saturday, July 28
I take another step, breathless, in the dark. It has been dark now for over three months. I look down at my thermometer and see the temperature has increased a little; it just has touched minus 72 degrees Celsius (about minus 98 degrees Fahrenheit). My fingers begin to freeze. I have lost all sensation in my cheeks.
I live at 3,800 meters equivalent altitude (about 12,470 feet) and breathe one-third less oxygen than the amount available at sea level in New York City or London. It has been dark 24 hours a day for the last three months. We saw the sun for the last time in May.
Where am I? Welcome to Planet Concordia — at least, that is the term I have coined for my whereabouts. I am Dr. Alexander Kumar, Anglo-Indian in origin, and alongside being a physician, explorer, photographer and scientist, I am spending one year at Concordia Station, a French-Italian research outpost in the most extreme and remote region of Antarctica.
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