What exactly is artificial intelligence?

These days the term is slapped on practically anything software-driven that runs automatically. If it can do something by itself, people break into a cold sweat and are ready to swear eternal allegiance to it. In reality, the term “artificial intelligence” has different interpretations depending on the level of self-awareness across various layers of the population of our planet. For example, there are the rather primitive definitions in online encyclopedias, where AI, I quote, “refers to the capability of computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making”. This means, for example, that being able to play checkers or chess falls under the AI definition – even if the program can’t do anything else: no bike riding, no potato peeling, no pizza delivery routing…

However, the collective [un]consciousness believes that these IT novelties with “smart” features are indeed the very “digital brain” seen in Hollywood movies – capable of anything and everything, now and forever. It also believes that, soon, we mammals will have to go and hide in caves again – just like in the dinosaur era. Likely? I, for one, don’t think so…

The modern popular belief in an all-powerful AI – it’s all pure nonsense: about as ridiculous as ancient tribes’ terror during thunderstorms – thinking the gods were battling over their divine goals and motivations.

Neural networks, machine learning, ontology, generative AI, and other programming stuff – that’s the current level of “digital intelligence”; nothing more. These are programs or software-hardware systems designed to solve specific tasks – trained, steered, and fine-tuned by human experts. They’re not even trying to be universal – current tech just can’t handle that!

Read on…

Fasten your seatbelts – in every sense! We’re flying to an absolutely mind-blowing place – Salar de Uyuni, or the Uyuni Salt Flat in Bolivia!

The distance from La Paz to Uyuni by car is only 540km, but Google Maps claims the journey takes a whopping eight hours – for Bolivian roads are far from speedy highways. That’s why most tourists opt for a flight. Plus the view from the plane window is stunning; just be sure to sit on the right side.

Just after take-off you get a great view of El Alto (whose airport is at a dizzying altitude of 4061 meters!):

Then come colorful desert landscapes with volcanoes on the horizon:

And here it is – the salt flat! The opposite shore is a staggering 120km away – the visibility is incredible! The view of the lake is breathtaking…

Read on…

Next up on our LatAm-2025 trip, not far from Bolivia’s de facto capital, La Paz, there’s the unique tourist attraction known as Death Road. It’s around a 30-kilometer stretch of the “Old Death Road” (I’ll explain why it’s called that later) that runs through extremely dangerous yet breathtakingly beautiful mountains. And we were going to experience it on bicycles. And I reckon it’s worth flying to La Paz just for this bike ride alone…

Briefly – an overview…

First, I repeat, it’s breathtakingly beautiful:

Read on…

Farewell Titicaca, and I hope we’ll meet again. Meanwhile, our January journey through Latin America was heading deeper into Bolivia. Destination – La Paz…

La Paz is Bolivia’s second-largest city (if we exclude suburbs) and also the de facto capital of the country – though de jure the capital is Sucre. Yes – there’s a bit of confusion here re the cities, but this post won’t be about Bolivia’s administrative divisions; it’s about something much more interesting (and unusual). For here in Bolivia there are some truly fascinating sights. But let’s take things step by step…

One of La Paz’s suburbs is the urban area of El Alto. If you look at a map, the size of this “suburb” actually surpasses that of La Paz itself, with its population having (probably) already exceeded a million. Given that El Alto is situated at an altitude of over 4000 meters, it’s the highest-altitude city with over a million inhabitants. From a plane, it doesn’t look particularly impressive. And if you take a closer look – yes, it’s quite obvious that the income level per capita here isn’t very high ->

Of course, one could focus more on the surrounding views of the city:

But if you pay attention to the buildings along the streets, you might notice something unusual:

Read on…

Our LatAm-2025 journey continues: farewell Peru; hello Bolivia!…

We begin in this country at Lake Titicaca – its Bolivian side, since we’d just explored the Peruvian side.

Mediterranean-like (in appearance), oxygen-deprived (altitude: nearly 4000m), and really quite fascinating!…

There isn’t all that much to fully contemplate-meditate upon here on the Islands of the Sun and Moon. All the same, these are still iconic places rich in history: legend has it that, on the former island, the first Inca (the founder of the Inca Empire) Manco Cápac (and his wife Mama Ocllo), first appeared to the people. That’ll do for me; so, at least once in my lifetime, I figured I just had to get here and immerse myself in the place and its history – and landscapes. And the place turned out to be really very pleasant – it seems to invite you to settle down, calm down, sit on a bench, and meditate on the view ->

Read on…

Next up on our Latin American trip was the legendary Lake Titicaca – the vast high-altitude (elevation: 3812 meters) freshwater lake…

That photo’s a bit ahead of the story, as it was taken from the Bolivian side of the lake; we were still on Peruvian territory…

Our main goal was to visit the floating reed islands of the unique Uru (Uros) people. Let me first tell you a bit about them…

A long time ago – even before the rule of the Incas – these people lived on the shores of Lake Titicaca. But as the Inca Empire expanded, conquering more and more land, it eventually reached around here. The Uru didn’t have many options: either perish fighting against the much stronger invader – or surrender (into slavery).

But the Uru found another solution: they got into their boats and sailed out across the lake to hide in the reed marshes several kilometers from the shore. And since the Incas had come to stay, the Uros remained in the reeds. They built islands and houses and lived there so as to escape the conquerors. When they were eventually discovered, the Incas didn’t wipe them out (perhaps they were satisfied with their conquests by then) but instead imposed a small tax on them.

Centuries passed – the Incas were wiped out by the Spaniards, Peru eventually gained independence from Spain, and much water has since flowed from Lake Titicaca – yet the Uros people continued to live on their floating islands, and still do to this day! Something like this:

Read on…

Can you trust the internet? A 200% rhetorical question. Those who once did have either died, gone bankrupt, or never developed intellectually since kindergarten. Or could it be otherwise? Unfortunately, even seasoned, life-hardened travelers still fall for internet scams. Here’s a tale about how I recently got fooled by convincingly pretty picturesfound on said internet…

If you search the net for the most fascinating and beautiful scenic spots of Peru, the name Vinicunca is bound to pop up. These are the so-called Rainbow Mountains, which are shown like this (photo from the just-referenced Wikipedia) ->

Of course, seeing that – we all agreed that we just had to go! So off we popped…

Yes, bad weather and lack of sunlight could be blamed, but where were the colors? Here’s what we actually saw! ->

Something doesn’t quite add up between what the internet says and what we observed ourselves. Maybe we just visited at the wrong time? Let’s investigate: can you trust the internet?…

Read on…

Day zero: preview.

And so, after several days of acclimatization (in the middle of our LatAm-2025 trip), the day had finally come to begin our trek up the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. I’d dreamed of walking this ancient path since 2011 when I first visited the place…

The Inca Trail (note the singular, but it’s actually made up of three overlapping trails) was just one of a great many like it that formed a dense path network covering the entire territory of the Inca Empire. The distance from the northernmost to the southernmost path is estimated at 6000 km (!!!). The internet suggests that a total of 30,000–40,000km of such trails have been discovered, while local guides – like ours, Vicente – have their own perspective: they claim that recent excavations have uncovered even more routes, bringing the total length of the Incan transportation network to 78,000km (for comparison, the total length of all railroad tracks in Russia (by far the largest country in the world) is 120,000+ km)!

Most of the trails were paved. Here’s what they look like today:

Some roads were actively used even after the empire’s fall. Later, they were used by vehicles, which led to the near-complete destruction of the stonework in lowland areas. However, in the mountains, although some damage has occurred (with restoration efforts on tourist trails), Vicente told us that around 70% of the stonework is original. Literally built for eternity!

These paths were primarily pedestrian. The Incas never invented the wheel (just like the rest of the indigenous American civilizations), and local llamas and alpacas were not suited for such terrains. The maximum load a llama can carry is 15kg, and it can walk no more than 10km per day on flat ground with such a weight on its back. Therefore, everything here was carried by the Incans themselves. The steps along these paths can be quite steep in places. Watch your step!…

Read on…

I hope I haven’t overwhelmed you with the details of our January trip through Latin America – especially since it’s only just the beginning ). But there’s just so much color, so many unusual things, and so much acclimatization needs doing. You need to walk, adapt, and get used to breathing more actively – for there’s not much oxygen up here. Sometimes, during the day, you breathe more rapidly and deeply because your body demands it. But at night, during sleep, your “cruise control” kicks in, and you start breathing in your usual lowland rhythm. As a result, your body starts to suffocate, your brain doesn’t get enough oxygen (this is still while asleep), and you start having nightmares like you’re trapped or being crushed – suffocating to death. You wake up actually gasping for air!

So, what to do? Simple! Sit up and take deep breaths. Breathe deeply for three to five minutes, and then go back to sleep. Main thing: it’s all about gradually acclimatizing to the mountain heights – taking it slow. Which is just what we did…

The next stop for yet more acclimatization plus sightseeing was Ollantaytambo – another ancient Inca city…

This city was significant for the Inca Empire – both as a military fortress and as an economically important site (food storage), and it also played a role in religious practices.

Read on: Ollantaytambo: more ancient Inca ruins, plus an Epiphany carnival – LatAm style.

After continuing our pre-Machu-Picchu acclimatization – first in Cusco then Pisac – next on our LatAm-2025 trip was… a bit more acclimatization – heading down the valley of the Urubamba River…

// By the way, the waters of this river feed into the basin of the great (or could it be even the greatest river on our planet) Amazon. Who knew?!… //

Today was to be one of those people/street-life/local customs/general-daily-life-watching days – like we recently had on our China-2024 trip in Songzhou. Just observing how a day passes here for the locals away from the tourist magnets…

And that includes observing what they eat – and that includes… black corn!

// Actually, it’s purple – maíz morado. Heard of it before? I hadn’t. And I didn’t get to try it, which I regret. //

We were told that Peru grows hundreds of different types of both corn and potatoes. And after walking around the local market, I can confirm this to be true. The path to the market goes through Pisac, whose Inca ruins we’d checked out the day before. But on this day we checked out not the ruins but the modern-day, lived-in part of the ancient city. So, let’s take a walk down its alleys and squares! Let’s see how the average Peruvian lives…

Read on…