Nota Bene

…*But were afraid to ask

Being somehow drawn to the deep-frozen (sometimes down to -60°C!) North in winter, obsessed with brutal Siberian winter roads, having to put up with equally brutal overnight stays, and thousands of kilometers of rough roads tracks… – let’s be honest, it’s a mental anomaly. Most people would only venture into such a world against their will. Suggest a winter trip to Oymyakon instead of, say, the Maldives, and any normal person would twirl their index finger around one of their temples and roll their eyes. At the other extreme – there are some folks who can’t get enough of such extremely frigid locations like the Arctic or Antarctic. I’m not quite that far gone, but every couple of years I do try and tackle a new winter driving route. I simply mad for it!…

Up north in the winter, it’s a completely surreal world of whiteness!

The scenery in places is simply stunning:

You zone out watching these views roll by, driving as if hypnotized – for hundreds and hundreds of kilometers…

Read on…

// If anyone missed Jujuy №1 – here it is.

The undisputed highlight of our trip to northern Argentina was the Mountain of 14 Colors, aka the Serranía de Hornocal, in the Quebrada de Humahuaca region – a World Heritage Site. And it (rather – they, but in Spanish the name’s in the singular) really is (are) multicolored! Through some geological miracle, the sedimentary rock here ended up layered in different colors. Then erosion ground some of it down (over millennia) and washed it away, and what we’re left with today is this:

Look closer and it gets even more OMG! ->

And if you grab the binoculars or crank up the zoom on a telephoto lens – it’s all just fantastic! ->

Read on…

We’re all different. Some folks have a pedigree dog and a whole houseful of kids and grandkids. Others keep two or three cats – each with its own personality. Some even keep exotic tropical cockroaches and snakes. Some get hooked on online games; others prefer the real world. Some head to the beach in summer for the sun and sea; others make for the mountains – the higher the better. We’re all different – me included. For me – here’s how: my face is usually tanned from trips to the tropics, yet I’ve also developed a serious fondness of Siberian winters and frosty landscapes – those of the meditative-contemplative kind…

For Siberian frosts (especially those in Yakutia) really do invite contemplation – particularly when you’re driving long distances through the wilderness. Like this season…

Not that we got a proper cold snap this year, while the bleached winter scenery really does depend on the uniquely Siberian deep frosts. But I’ll save that topic for another post; for now…

Read on…

Our trip to and around South America early this year had taken us to the north of Argentina and the mountains of the Jujuy province – famous for its bright red (and other colors) mountains. And I just love staring at views like this: the distances, the scale, the colors – it all just blows your mind! We checked out several different locations with these colorful mountains, and now I’m wondering which to start off telling you about. Unlike my usual “at the beginning”, today I’ll go for “in ascending order of awesomeness”: from the modest to the monumental!…

First: where? Here. Also here ->

Read on…

LatAm-2026 so far:

• Mount Fitz Roy – approached
• Cerro Torre mountain – viewed
• Fitz Roy again – seen properly
• Huemul Glacier – nearly reached )
• Perito Moreno – observed up close

Next up – Jujuy Province and its multicolored mountains, salt flats, and roads that seem to go on forever…

Note: none (0!) of these photos is Photoshopped! This is exactly how it all looks. No, really!…

– Read on…>

Though our first attempt of getting up close to a glacier on our LatAm-2026 tour didn’t go quite to plan, our second sure made up for it. And so – introducing (to most of you, I think, dear readers): the Perito Moreno Glacier! ->

And here it is on Google Maps:

Read on…

Privyet folks!

With a few thousand kilometers behind us, things were getting somewhat rough and ready – despite the gorgeous bleached-white scenery…

At times, for five (5!) days straight we didn’t have any internet at all. Or a shower with soap and shampoo. Or a warm WC. Nothing at all! And when such comforts of civilization did finally show up, a line quickly formed to get at them!

Anyway, on with my notes from the winter roads…

Another “1111” sign for my collection ->

But where is it?…

Read on…

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen!

And now – time for a mathematical brainteaser. So without further ado – here it is! ->

How can you turn six arbitrary digits into a hundred?

That’s it!

Now, off you go to try to solve it; then come back later for the answers below. No peeking!

If you’ve come back scratching your head – fair enough. So here’s a bit more meat to this mathematical bone:

Is it possible, with any six consecutive digits (except for a leading zero) – using addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, exponentiation, roots, factorials, and/or parentheses – to get exactly 100? You can “glue” digits together, but you can’t rearrange them.

All right, off you pop again with your thinking caps firmly on…

And now – answers!…

So, how do you get 100 from “123456”? There are plenty of ways; for instance:

Read on…

Hola everyone!

As per (of late), I’m mixing up the geography – and climates – of my blogposts, just so things don’t get samey…

And that means: no Siberian winter-roads today; instead: picturesque Patagonian mountains – albeit featuring something very cold and icy (and massive). Confused? Of course you won’t be – the give-away’s in the title!

So far down in Argentina:

Mount Fitz Roy – approached;
Cerro Torre mountain – viewed;
Fitz Roy again – seen properly;

More walkies and more views of the both mountains – done.

So what was next for us? Next was when things went somewhat awry…

The plan went something like this: a hike to and then upon the Huemul Glacier (“Deer Glacier”) and a look at the lake (“laguna”) of the same name formed by the glacier. Such a lake is actually a common thing: a glacier drags along stones, clay, and all sorts of mountain debris that forms so-called moraines with lakes inside them. I might not have described them perfectly accurately; apologies if so: I’m no real glaciologist…

Read on…

People sometimes ask me: “Eugene, why are you so drawn to the North? What is it about deep-frozen Siberian cities likes Yakutsk, or just-as-cold Far-Eastern ones like Magadan, and the treacherous winter roads that connect them?

It’s like this. In the Arctic and near-Arctic it’s always winter – even when it’s summer. But the “real” winter – December to February – is just so much colder. Still, there are no gnats, mosquitoes, or other bloodsuckers, and that, to me, more than makes up for the cold. (And anyway – a Russian afraid of the cold? That would be like… a burger patty being afraid of buns.) Curiously, southern/central Yakutia (the Sakha Republic) is well away from (well south of) the Arctic, but in winter it can get much colder there. If you don’t believe me, look at the temperature data by region. For example, compare the climate of Tiksi (on the north coast of Russia – inside the Arctic Circle) with that of Yakutsk. Who knew?! So yes, the climate is a harsh one, and not to many folks’ taste. Not to mine in and of itself, but there’s something else – besides the lack of hungry insects – that makes up for the intense (-60°C and below!) cold in winter: central Yakutia – for example along the Kolyma highway – only gets prettier. It becomes a deep-frozen, absolutely white, winter-wonderland scene that’s simply unique. I’ve enthused and raptured about it plenty before (see my MYM (2021) and MYB (2022) expedition series of posts). Unfortunately (!), this year the winter was extremely warm, with average temperatures around just (!) -20/-30°C (which is very unusual for late winter), so the views, alas, weren’t so magical.

Nevertheless, extremely cold or no, when you head out early in the morning for another day’s drive, you’re immediately overcome by some kind of special northern hypnosis. And sunrises only intensify the feeling:

Read on…