site.btaPunta Arenas Resident Ines Luna's 20-Year Story with Bulgarian Polar Expeditions and How She Opened Her Home to Them

Punta Arenas resident Ines Luna has been offering Bulgarian expeditions the use of her home on their way to Antarctica for more than 20 years. “It’s as if your family is returning to its home,” she said. The fourth group of the 34th Bulgarian Antarctic Expedition visited the Chilean woman’s home together with Prof. Christo Pimpirev on Friday. The group is likely to fly to King George Island on Saturday morning, after their flights were cancelled over the past three days.

Ines’s Bulgarian story began about 20 years ago, when she met Prof. Christo Pimpirev. At the time, he was a young and enthusiastic scientist dreaming of Antarctica. All “veteran” polar explorers describe that period as the “romantic years” of the Bulgarian Antarctic expeditions. Back then, the Bulgarians arrived in Punta Arenas without a place to stay, but luck led them to Luna – a woman born in Chile, but with a Bulgarian soul.

“About 20 years ago I knew someone who introduced me to Christo Pimpirev. I felt strength. At that moment, I met an adventurer. It was very interesting for me because I had never met Bulgarians before,” Luna told the Bulgarian News Agency. From that moment on, Bulgarian Antarctic explorers began staying overnight in her home every year on their way to the Ice Continent.

“From the very first moment, everything between these people and me was special. It was as if part of your family was returning home. The emotions were very strange for me, because I had never known Bulgarians before, and with these people I felt as if they were my brothers. From that moment until today, I have seen how one person – Christo Pimpirev – is the driving force behind a great project, an endless project that keeps developing,” Luna noted.

According to her, the reality of science in Bulgaria would have been very different without Prof. Pimpirev and his achievements. “Now you have science at a very high level. Many young people want to come to Antarctica and engage in science. And all of this is in the name of Bulgaria. You are winning Bulgaria’s place in the world. Now the world knows Bulgaria,” she said.

Today, Ines Luna lives alone, dividing her time between the home she created for Bulgarians in Chile and another home she has built in recent years in Argentina. Her Chilean home has become Bulgarian – its walls are decorated with gifts from Bulgaria: the national flag, a map of Livingston Island, souvenirs, photographs of Prof. Pimpirev and Antarctic explorers.

She says that nothing keeps her in Punta Arenas except her Bulgarian family. That is why she wants to bequeath her home to the Antarctic explorers, so that they can continue to fill it every year on their way to and from Antarctica.

“I have no family – you are my family. For the love I feel from you, I have nothing to give back – I am a poor, ordinary woman. But at some point I thought: I have this house, and that is the only thing I have,” Luna said. “That’s why I made a will and left the house to the Bulgarian Antarctic Institute. I did it last year, and for me it was a great idea – I was happy and at peace with my decision.”

Her only concern is whether and how her home will be maintained. She hopes that the Bulgarian government will support the Bulgarian Antarctic Institute so that her home can continue to welcome Bulgarians even after she is gone.

The number of Bulgarian polar explorers has been growing, and Ines Luna’s house can no longer accommodate everyone, so they prefer not to burden her and stay in hotels. The group that was supposed to reach the Bulgarian base on Livingston Island during the COVID-19 pandemic was also accommodated in a hotel. Although the Bulgarians were quarantined and unable to visit Ines Luna, she went to the front of their hotel with a handmade sign reading “Strong Bulgarians!”

“We could not have dinner with the boys from that expedition as usual, and I could not see any of them during the pandemic – only at that moment, from the street. And they told me: ‘Say that we are strong!’ Christo Pimpirev was at the hotel window,” she recalled.

Ines Luna also said that her love for Bulgaria is strong and inexplicable. She has been to the country only once and plans to visit again in the summer, to stay in small towns and feel the Bulgarian spirit. She hopes to learn a little Bulgarian by then, so she can speak the language that her soul already knows.

“When I see the people when they arrive, I don’t see names or professions. I feel people very, very close to me inside. I talk about my excitement because this is the strangest thing for me – my reaction to you. At that moment, for example, I don’t remember the names of some of the boys. But when I see them, I know these people. It’s as if I’ve always known them. I don’t know you from now – I’ve known you for a very long time,” she said with tears in her eyes.

“I know people from other countries. But only with Bulgarians do I have this very strong feeling inside. Every time I cry, because my excitement is so strong. My mind cannot understand it. There is only some emotion and tears, because I can do nothing more,” Luna said.

RSV 421 departed for Antarctica from Varna (on the Black Sea) on November 7. BTA has had a national press club on board since 2022 and another on Livingston Island since February 2024.

The news pieces of the BTA special correspondents on RSV 421 and Antarctica are freely available in Bulgarian and English on the agency's website. They can be used free of charge by all media with reference to BTA.