Manon’s Tales from the Road

On a Saturday night in Fall, with a vague plan of catching up on blogging and delivering guest posts, I find myself completely sunk into the website of the Tractor Girl

As she is preparing the final part of her trip that so far has taken her to South Africa and the Cape, she shares on her website what it takes to prepare a trip to the South Pole. Here are the 3 most surprising parts I came across:

1. Eyes?
In the Arctic, wearing contact lenses is impossible, and special corrected sunglasses are very expensive. As a solution, Manon had her eyes corrected in South Africa – to be able to actually see on the South Pole. Unfortunately, due to a very rare complication, she barely could support light for a while and turned into a modern-age Dracula. It takes some to make it all the way down to the end of the world…

2. Don’t sweat
If you sweat, you die. The problem with sweating in the Arctic is that it will make you freeze to death. As a dancer, Manon’s body learnt to sweat to build up stamina, and in the tropics during her travels to cool down. During her preparation in North Canada, she ended up skiing in the ice cold weather with a tight leather jacket right on her skin, to prevent the sweat and moisture from getting into her clothes.

3. Training with tractor tires
In the YouTube clip here, you can see shots in which Manon is pulling tractor tires on the beach in South Africa… Pulling tractor tires over a sandy surface seems to be the ideal way to prepare for pulling stuff over the snow. The tractor turned out to be the right means of transportation all along for this trip!

This post originally appeared on the TEDx Delft website, and is now reblogged as some Sunday inspiration for you!