After passing the Akkem rapid, we had another day of pure meditation and contemplative activity, which was only occasionally interrupted by the helmsman’s commands: “let’s paddle a little”, “let’s move to midstream”, “there’s a hole in the riffle, wanna go for it?”

Read on: Go on, carry on climbing!…

After the Shyoki rapids, the Katun turns into a relatively calm river and stays that way for a full 200 kilometers, where the river’s smooth (though fast) current is only rarely interrupted by short stretches of riffles. All around there are mountains, lush forests and fields, and not a single person in sight for kilometers – except for us . We didn’t even see any wild animals except ducks, and some local type of nettas or cormorants occasionally flew back and fore along the river.

Our raft with the tourists on board splashed down the river, the captain was silent – there were no orders to paddle – so we enjoyed the sights and landscapes as we floated along. The sun came out, warmed us and looked down on us from above. So we fell into meditation and nirvana…

Read on: That was cool! I want to do it again!…

Before, when I heard the words Katun River or just ‘Katun’, I imagined rapids and rafting. It was the first thing that came to mind. Now, that idea is set in stone after more than 400km of rafting, scores of rapids, several dozen riffles and goodness-knows how many thousand paddle strokes. But Katun no longer just means rafting and water – it’s a place of sublime beauty.

But more on that a bit later. First, we need to actually start rafting. For instance, like this:

Read on: …and this and that…

This had never happened before – but here it is, happening again (с).

Who would pass up the chance of flying in a chopper over sharp peaks and deep ravines? Not to mention flying for the first time over Belukha, plus a chance to get all your rafting gear up to the Katun river head!

But why use words? This is a place for viewing pics, not reading words…

Read on: Boom! surprise!…

Our first destination was mount Belukha. It’s famous – but only in certain circles. And that’s a pity, because the place is absolutely stunning! Beautiful, monumental, enormous. There’s snow, glaciers, colorful rocks, bright greenery, white rivers (“glacial milk”) and white foamy mountain waterfalls with the purest, tastiest ice-water. But we decided to begin with the Stone Town – a cult place of interest for connoisseurs and fans of Roerich and his secret forces of nature in search of an Altai Shambhala. A short walk along the Jarl gorge brings you to the stream of the same name (see here).

Read on: Out of this world colors…

Hi all!

Altai ranks up there as one of the most fascinating and magical places on earth.

It’s not only beautiful – there’s something about the place. It might be some sort of special energy in the rocks there or something else unbeknown to us. Here the colors are brighter, the water tastes better, the grass is greener, and the mountains contrast more with their surroundings. This year I was lucky enough to spend three weeks in Altai with a group of like-minded adventurers. We hiked, choppered, and rafted (down the Katun River).

In all we walked about 70 kilometers to Lake Akkem and then around it, flew around mount Belukha in a helicopter, flew up to the headwaters of the Katun and rafted down to the lower reaches of the river – almost 400km (four HUNDRED kilometers!!) in all, and descending over a kilometer along the vertical axis. This was my ‘summer holiday’.

Reaв on: And this is what it all looked like…

Volcanism. It’s one of my hobbies. I just love getting up volcanoes all over the planet. Something about their beauty, power, hooliganism, infamy, aliveness, hotness, lava, craters, calderas, lakes… you get the picture.

But there’s one thing about volcanism that can be a bit of a pain: you normally need a good few days – if not weeks – to engage in any properly. This is because volcanoes of course tend to be massive, inaccessible, and often there are several in one spot that demand conquering. But then I heard about Mount Aragats: the quintessential ‘weekend volcano’.

Here she is. As you can see, she’s not far from the Armenian capital – so there’s the ‘inaccessible’ point crossed off as a volcanism-hindrance. She’s big and has more than one peak, but there is just one of her. All that is to explain its ‘weekendness’ :). But enough words; check out the pics:

Read on: Ruined over the millennia; but that’s half its charm…

Oakie-doakie. On we march front-crawl, to the next stop on the worldwide swimming bus – Europe.

6. Hot Sea, Santorini.

Santorini is a volcano-island, or island-volcano. It’s actually a ring of islands, which are the remains of the caldera of a huge volcano of yester-millennia, with a fresh volcano growing up inside the ring in the middle, which every now and then erupts and grows bigger. I was on Santorini not long ago, and wrote plenty of words about it here on this blog.

The only hot springs in the world that are situated in the sea reside here. At least, the only ones in the world known to me. The hot water spurts up from the seabed through the sea, making said sea the warmest sea you’ll ever know :).

There are quite a few spots around the islands where you can partake in hot-spring-sea-bathing. The one in the above pic isn’t the best; others are deeper and hotter, I’m told…

Read on: summer holidays on the White Sea islands…

Recent extreme water-sports up in (surprisingly) sunny Greenland got me thinking. Maybe I could try and reach into the recesses of my memory to come up with accounts of my most unusual, interesting and enjoyable swims I’ve had around the world – a ‘Top World-Swims’, if you like. For swimming – or mere bathing, or just plain getting into bodies of water besides those in a hotel room bathtub – I’ve done rather a lot of, in all sorts of far-flung weird-and-wonderful locations…

Taking dips: it’s an interesting topic – especially now during the summer season of R&R, beaching & resorting, and the attendant water-based activities is upon us. For maybe some of you are near pools, lakes, seas or oceans right now and may be in danger of missing the very best spots – as attested to by Yours Truly. So, without more of a do, let’s get these aquatics started.

All righty. The plan here is as follows: I’ll be telling you only about swimming/bathing in natural water bodies. Mega swimming pools, aqua parks, spas and so on won’t be included. Here it’s all about the most unusual organic bathing experiences. I’ll work across the globe from left to right, top to bottom: Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australasia. I’ll be missing out Antarctica as I didn’t manage to get any bathing in down there, if you can believe it :).

Oh, and btw: If anyone can see any glaring gaps to my global natural-aqua-must-swims, please don’t be shy; let us all know about them in the comments. I for one would be most grateful…

Ok. Let’s go. North America…

I’ve been to Alaska, but much like on Antarctica, I had things other than bathing on my mind. Therefore, I’ll jump straight over to Greenland, which is still technically North America…

1. Bobbing up and down among chunks of Greenlandic ice.

To swim bathe float in a Michelin-Man costume in among big chunks of floating ice and icebergs, to touch them, or even clamber up onto them, is an unforgettable experience. There’s nothing to fear: those brightly colored costumes are dry and comfortable. Only your hands get to feel the water – but even then only a bit: just a little water gets inside the mitts.

Read on: glaciers, caves and dolphins …

Hi all!

Ahhh – July: always tons getting done in the KL camp before the August lull when lots of us are on vacation – myself included! We’ve had our birthday bash already; there’s all sorts going on corporate-wise, which I’ll not go into here; and here’s the latest July event: the opening – finally! – of our corporate eatery @ our HQ! It’s called BarKas. Yes – the ‘Bar’ of ‘Kaspersky’. We decided on ‘bar‘ as, though it’s more of a restaurant than a bar, it is, in true KL spirit, informal and relaxed just like a bar, only nicer, if you follow me. Also, ‘Restaurant-Kas’ hardly has a ring to it. Plus, there’s the curiosity value in the fact that, in Russian, a ‘barkas’ is… a paddle boat! ‘Perfect’, we thought :).

The ‘beta testing’ of the paddle boat was back in March of this year. And just the other day it finally opened its doors to all and sundry (it’s not a KL-only canteen kinda thing), which I guess includes us – so we decided to give it some ‘alpha testing’…

Read on: First impressions? Nice.