Tag Archives: heli

If you ever have the chance to choose exactly how to get, in daylight hours (ideally in the morning), from Vientiane, the capital of Laos, to Luang Prabang (which was the capital roughly half a millennium ago), then… well, first let me explain why I’ve started this post with that… incomplete conditional clause (oof)…

Now, Vientiane is home to the country’s main international airport (the one we flew into). But the really interesting tourist activities are in Luang Prabang, which is 200+km north of the capital. There are various ways of getting there: 1) taking the new Chinese railroad (two hours; lots of tunnels – 75, I just peeked – and you can’t see a thing in those); 2) bouncing along in a car for 300km, which takes some 10–12 hours (with stops); or 3) flying – merrily and with gusto – by helicopter, from airport to airport, in an hour-and-a-half (and in Luang Prabang the airport is within the city limits). So, back to my first rush-in sentence: if you ever do need to get from Vientiane to Luang Prabang – make sure you take the chopper option! Yes, it’s fastest, but also – the views along the way will simply knock your socks off!…

My dearly beloved wife was so thrilled that she even commented, “It’s like Kamchatka!” Well, that’s the highest possible accolade for the contemplativeness of the scenery around us )

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As I mentioned last time, after our multiple waterfall-showers, it was time to take a helicopter ride to check out Itaipu and Iguazu from above…

We signed up for the flight, paid, showed up on time, spent about 40 minutes standing in line – and off we choppered!…

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Easter Island – done and dusted. But I’ve still got more tales from the Kamchatkan side to tell – including this one about… a volcano; fancy that?!

After a miserable first few days in Kamchatka – miserable due to the incessant rain spoiling our plans – the weather finally came to its senses to give us a bit of sunshine. Naturally, we tried to catch up on what we’d missed – the places we hadn’t managed to see yet. And first on the list was the most significant (constantly active!) of the northern volcanos – Shiveluch. And here it is in all its glory:

Shiveluch is one of the most active volcanoes in Kamchatka. It doesn’t just erupt at regular intervals – sometimes it does so with real force. There’ve even been cases where, after one of its eruptions, the airspace over Alaska (!) was closed – which is, believe it or not, more than two thousand kilometers away!

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Hey everyone!

As I write this I’m recovering after a 32-hour multi-stopover flight back from Latin America; however, despite the exhaustion, I’m already back into reminiscing about Rio de Janeiro while the memories are still fresh…

The first time I visited this splendid city (and Brazil, for that matter) was way back in 2006. We were having our second Latin American partner conference in a place called Salvador (here), and we figured it’d be a shame not to spend a few days on some banal tourism. I mean, why fly halfway around the world just to work and then immediately head back home? No – you need to stay a while longer and take a good look around.

But since I wasn’t blogging in 2006, there aren’t any photos on the internet from back then. Still, I do have a few pics in my archives – for example the following. Yes, it was windy! ->

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A moment comes when memories of even the most powerful and almost-perfect trip to Kamchatka in the summer of 2024 begin to fade. That went for me recently. So I needed to refresh my memory…

But why was this trip only almost perfect, and not entirely? Simply because one week out of the three was spoiled by dreadful weather! Still, any experienced Kamchatka traveler will tell you that you should allocate at least 50% of your time for cyclones, rain, or just view-spoiling low cloud cover. Or a bigger percentage; or a much bigger percentage. Just ask Vitus Bering. So, as it turned out – we were lucky with just 33%.

In good weather, you see things here that you won’t see in everyday life. Well, except perhaps in Indonesia or New Zealand – though, even there, you won’t find such vivid phenomena as those in Kamchatka. For example, there’s the hot Khodutka lake, the hot beaches of Ksudach, the bright colors of the Koshelev volcano, and bears everywhere – Kamchatka exclusives.

In short, it’s simple: Kamchatka is the most magical place in the world for contemplation-meditation. It only just beat its nearest competitor (New Zealand), but it’s so much more interesting – than everything else on this planet!

As our trip was coming to a close, we took a final helicopter ride around the some of the peninsula’s hotspots (pun not intended!).

Farewell glimpses of southern Kamchatka – of bright colors and snow cover…

…And of the “greenery” of the volcanic ridges:

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Toward the end of our nearly three-week summer trip to Kamchatka, after already countless splendid days and endless incredible, breathtaking views that we were so fortunate to experience, we finally encountered the single most magnificent day of all. This day became unforgettable thanks to a walk around the peaks of Koshelev. This remote volcano, far from the main tourist routes, isn’t all that well-known, and it doesn’t always greet its rare visitors with good weather. We, however, were lucky: it treated us to an endless riot of shapes and a kaleidoscope of color:

The volcano itself is a complex structure formed by the merging of five (!) different volcanoes.

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Having had to sit out the bad weather the previous day, we woke the next morning to clear blue, sunny skies – a rare but actually possible climatic phenomenon in Kamchatka. So after a quick breakfast (the weather could turn later in the day, so we had to look sharp), we all hopped into the chopper and flew up to the peak of Kambalny volcano!…

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When descending the slope of Kambalny Ridge the volcanism goes into overdrive. Everything hissing, boiling, and bubbling, and with every color of the rainbow present. The overall result is a surrealistic scene – like a mini-Uzon. So, of course – we set up camp right in the middle of it!…

Alas, the weather wasn’t great…

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Route 264 and the Valley of Geysers and Uzon caldera – done.

Next up on our Kamchatka-2024 summer vacation – Maly (Little) Semyachik – one of the three Semyachik-family volcanoes (the other two being Bolshoi (Big) Semyachik and Tsentralny (Central) Semyachik. So – why Maly, if it’s the little one? Actually, little or no – Maly is still an oh-my-grandiose-and-gorgeous volcano. See for yourself! ->

Inside its oval-shaped crater there sits that there beautiful lake, which measures around 800×1000 meters. I’d have described the lake just now as bright-turquoise colored – if it stayed bright turquoise all the time, but it doesn’t. Depending on (i) the particular acidity of its water fluid at a particular point in time, and (ii) how much light there is (in turn dependent on the time of day, the season of the year, and the weather) at that same particular point in time, it changes color: a chameleon lake! ->

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Next up, one of the most beautiful volcanoes in the world, and probably the most refined of the peninsula – Kronotsky ->

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