We met at the hotel lobby in Buenos Aires at 6am for the trip to the airport. Everything on the trip to the airport went smooth as our group transportation to the airport was pre-arranged by the ever-resourceful Joanne on our team. My fortunes for the day stopped with that. At the airport I was one of the only two members on the team that had to pay extra for the luggage being overweight, even though every one of us had excess luggage. It got worse. On the plane, I ended up with a seat with no windows. I guess I will read somebody else’s blog to find out about the scenic trip that plane ride afforded. D@#n!
Ushuaia is a scenic city. Nearly three sides of the city are covered by a mountain range and city slopes into a large open bay. Our hotel is located up on the mountain slopes with a great view of the bay in the front and great view of the snow covered mountain peaks in the back.
After getting settled down in the hotel I went out with John to throw around the frisbee I brought with me on the trip. That Frisbee has traveled with me for the last 9 years and has been thrown at quiet a few places around the world. It is also sentimental for me for the fact that it is one of the Frisbees from the first Bali Ultimate Frisbee tournament held in 1999 and it was organized by the team I played together in Jakarta, Indonesia. I remember starting playing with the team when it was just few of us who would get together on Sunday afternoons and throw the disc around. Within less than a year we morphed into a sizeable team under the name Discindo, played regularly on Sunday afternoons, and dared to hold an Asian ultimate tournament in Bali on the Easter weekend of 1999. We pulled it all off in style, with nearly 150 participants at the tournament and over 3 days of full spirited competition.
As we looked for sponsors to pull off this large event in 1999 – with all proceeds going to charity – Akzo Nobel stepped up as one of the main sponsors of this ground breaking event. In the nine years since this tournament has grown into an annually established event in Bali. It now gets strong recognition from the Bali government for the local development and charitable endeavors the tournament and the Discindo team delivers. While I am in Antarctica, Discindo will be holding the 9th annual Bali Ultimate Frisbee Tournament during the Easter weekend. Guess what! At the same time, the Akzo Nobel expedition team will be trying to stage what I expect to be Antarctica’s first ultimate Frisbee game and our game disc will be the Frisbee from the 1999 Bali tournament. Disc’s in!
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