site.btaSecond-to-Last Bulgarian Antarctic Team Heads to Ice Continent

The second-to-last group of Bulgarian Antarctic researchers bound for the Bulgarian base on Livingston Island will leave early on January 24 on an ITA Airways flight from Sofia to Rome, the Bulgarian Antarctic Institute (BAI) said on Friday.

In Rome, the group will split into two. One part, including BAI President Christo Pimpirev, will fly to Buenos Aires, where they will be joined by Flotilla Admiral Boyan Mednikarov and Capt.(N) Prof. Miroslav Tsvetkov from the Naval Academy of Varna, before continuing on to Santiago de Chile and then Punta Arenas.

The other part of the group will travel via Sao Paulo to Punta Arenas. BTA's special correspondent Simona-Alex Mihaleva is among them.

From Punta Arenas, Prof. Pimpirev's group will continue on a Colombian Air Force Hercules C-130 to King George Island, where they will reunite with the second group, which will reach the island on a flight chartered by the Turkish Antarctic Programme.

All members will then board the Bulgarian naval research vessel Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodii (RSV 421), and are expected to arrive at the St Kliment Ohridski Bulgarian Antarctic base in early February.