Nota Bene

If you think we drove the alternative Kolyma route just out of curiosity… you’re absolutely right! Purely and solely out of curiosity. As it turned out though, some of our key partners have facilities there – we protect them from all sorts of cyber-nastiness, and they invite us to visit their operations. And the stars aligned so that one of Russia’s most golden enterprises – the Natalka gold-ore deposit – sits right by Route 44N-4 – the very alternative Kolyma route we were on. And here we are!

First up – a quick preview of coming attractions…

That’s the pit: one of the largest open-pit mines in the world.

And this is the finished product. About 75% gold, another 20-plus percent silver, plus assorted other stuff. These little bars weigh about 12 kilograms each, and from here they’re sent off for more thorough processing to produce practically pure gold – 999 fineness – and roughly the same purity of silver.

Between the pit and the finished product lies an incredibly complex technological cycle, which I’ll try to explain in a bit.

But first, a little history…

Read on…

If you ever need to dash from Yakutsk to Magadan (or Magadan to Yakutsk) by car – you need to take the only road that exists between the two cities. And that road is the Kolyma Highway: 2000+ kilometers with the route Yakutsk – Khandyga – Ust-Nera – Susuman – Magadan. And it’s an absolutely mind-blowingly beautiful road in January or February!…

I’ve already driven it along four (4!) times in the winter. And something tells me I’ll be back for more deep-frozen far-eastern road-trip tourism – and more than once.

Near Susuman, the highway splits into two branches: the main route, and an alternative route – 100km shorter, but trickier. This alternative road, marked 44N-4 (also known as the Tenkinskaya Highway), may be less comfortable for crossing the vast Kolyma region, but it’s far more scenic – at least in the dead of winter. So we hang a right off the main Kolyma road – and off we pop!…

Read on…

Oi folks!

Still in Brazil, we were not far from the city of Manaus, in the Amazon lowlands. We’d just finished exploring the anabranches of the Rio Negro, so now it was time for our next course of amazing Amazonia – the Amazon Jungle!…

There’s so much of it here that nobody really knows how much remains unexplored. Sure, they’re cutting it down mercilessly, but looking at a map, you get the sense the loggers will run out of steam before the jungle does. And out here in the middle of nowhere there are still tribes living without any contact with the outside world. Yep, really. They’re called uncontacted peoples. The internet says there are several such groups in the Amazon, but precisely how many is hard to work out. Maybe nobody really knows. Anyway, we were heading into perfectly civilized – even fairly touristy – parts of the Amazon jungle:

It’s hot and humid (who knew?!), but at least you’re almost always in the shade – with a few exceptions:

But first – a visit to a local tribe. Here’s the chief:

Read on…

Our tour of South America next took us to Brazil; specifically – to the city of Manaus (after a few adventures in São Paulo). But Manaus was just our base. The attraction was something a lot bigger and a lot more famous (just noticed – its Wikipedia page comes in a full 200 languages; rarely see that!). Have you guessed it yet? Yes, it’s the Amazon – the world’s largest (by both water volume and drainage basin) and arguably the longest river in the world!

Actually, we were more generally exploring Amazonia, aka the Amazon Basin, aka the Amazonian Plain, aka the Amazon Lowlands. And specifically – one of the Amazon’s main tributaries: the Rio Negro. Why? Because in these parts the Amazon is very silty and murky, and so there’s not much to see or do there. The Rio Negro on the other hand has much cleaner water and contains fish and dolphins and more, the surrounding ecosystem is richer, and indigenous people live along it in the jungle.

I say cleaner; here’s proof: the meeting of the muddy Amazon and the cleaner Rio Negro:

If you zoom in you can see it better:

And this mixing of clean and muddy water goes on for dozens of kilometers downstream from where the rivers meet. Here’s the confluence on Google Maps.

So where to begin? With the jungle, the indigenous people, and the rest of the locals? Local customs? Grottoes in the rain lit with shafts of sunlight?…

Read on…

Bye-bye, Atacama Desert!…

We pile into the cars, double-check we haven’t forgotten any suitcases or bags, and hit the road. Where to? The airport, of course!…

The nearest airport is in the small city of Calama, about 100km from our cozy digs in San Pedro de Atacama:

Read on…

I’d heard a lot about the thermal fields and geysers in Chile, and figured it was time to go see them for myself since the photos online were kind of underwhelming.

// Let me say this right away: Atacama does have thermal fields – but geysers? None. That’s why the “geyser” photos from there look so unimpressive. But whatever – onward to the El Tatio geothermal fields!…

All as per for thermal fields: much hissing, gurgling, bubbling, rumbling, and spraying of boiling water:

Read on…

We didn’t have much free time in St. Petersburg after the conference on the future of cybersecurity, so we only had room for one bit of sightseeing – a visit to the Krassin icebreaker museum…

The Krassin is a storied ship whose history is truly fascinating – but I’ll get to that in a bit. The first Arctic-class icebreaker in history was the Yermak, built at the end of the 19^th century based on the ideas of Vice Admiral Makarov – a remarkable man who did a great deal for Arctic exploration and development, and plenty besides. His dream was to reach the North Pole on an icebreaker. But calculations showed that doing so would require more power than the technology of the time could deliver…

Read on…

One morning – not too early, but still dark out – we piled into our vehicles and rolled out of Ust-Kut toward the ice road, heading for the town of Mirny (here)…

The weather was treating us well – a balmy -22°C for this time of year. We sure didn’t expect that!

Read on…

Atacama – pt. 1
Atacama – pt. 2
Atacama – pt. 3

So, shall we keep moving across the majestic mountain expanses of Chile’s Atacama? Of course we shall! How could there be a different answer? We didn’t come here for boredom, relaxation, assorted sybaritism, or spiritual languishing. We’re contemplative tourists. Show us the views – lots of them! :)

The next installment of entertainment to calm our restless tourist souls was catching a sunset in the Valley of Death (here) (Valle de la Muerte / Valle de Marte), which, curiously, doesn’t have a Wikipedia page)…

Beautiful – insanely so. The rock formations are painted in totally fantastic colors. But there’s a catch: the sun setting behind us, who were looking east. The shadow kept creeping over the landscapes around us, more and more relentlessly…

Read on…

Atacama – pt. 1
Atacama – pt. 2

The next must-see stop on our winter trip through South America was Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) (here). It’s the usual Atacama deal: unreal mountain scenery and intense colors, and meditative raptures while beholding the same. Today I’ll be showing you photos of it all, but you really need to see it for yourself!…

Read on…