Tag Archives: volcanism

Sorry for taking so long to post about my Kamchatka 2024 trip! My business travel schedule has been crazy lately. Almost immediately after Kamchatka (I didn’t even have time to catch my breath!) I set off for a business tour of Colombia, followed by Chile and China, and now I’m at Kazan Digital Week. Sometimes my travels can really throw me around like a rag doll.

But I haven’t forgotten about Kamchatka 2024! I’ve sorted and processed my photos, and had my fellow travelers do the same :). Now I’m as ready as I’ll ever be to share how it went.

Let’s start in the north with the Klyuchevsky group of volcanos. It comprises 14 volcanoes, but the big three are Bezymianny, Kamen, and Klyuchevskaya Sopka. Here they are all together; Bezymianny is the smoking one. A little further back is the sharp cone of Kamen, and flanking it is Klyuchevskaya Sopka.

Read on…

After Colombia, next up on our tour of Latin America – Chile. All as per: busy – meetings with partners we’ve been working with for many years and also large clients; new acquaintances, and a few university lectures – since educating specialists for careers in cybersecurity needs to be done as early as possible. University is a little too late; better to start at middle-school level (which we do, but that’s a whole other story). Still – better late than never…

Fortunately, between the working portion of the Colombia visit and that of the Chile visit – weekend! Time for some active tourism. So out came the map of Chile to work out what we could check out in two days. Not that it took long, for as soon as I saw them it was as good as decided: volcanoes!…

That photo is of the caldera (~crater) of the Sollipulli volcano (here). Impressive, eh?

Read on…

Next up on our short tour of paradisiacal Philippine islands – the Mount Mayon volcano.

Getting there from El Nido on a scheduled flight would have taken us ages, and since we didn’t have ages, we took a chopper again instead ->

From the get-go – oh my grandiose greenness! But yet again my photos were spoiled by the reflections on the windows of the helicopter. I wonder if there’s already some AI ML technology these days that can filter them out? I hope so: it’d really help on my summer holiday in Kamchatka this year…

Read on…

Hi folks!

Here we are with the second (and final) installment of my tales-and-pics from our titanically toilsome trek up Mount Rinjani.

I left you last time with us getting ready to descend down (600m – vertically) to a base camp. The plan was to take in some hot springs, and then to climb the opposite wall of the caldera. But no – we couldn’t, or at least wouldn’t. We were here to enjoy ourselves at a steady pace, not half-kill ourselves with over-exertion. So we quickly changed our plans: our three-day trek would become a four-day one. And that was sooo the right decision…

So we had an “easy” descent down to the lake that features the hot springs, and on the shore of which is the base camp. But… easy? You’d think most any descent in the world might be easy but… that sure doesn’t apply to Rinjani (or Table Mountain above cape Town, South Africa!). Again – it was more rubble on the double, often with us having to engage “all-wheel drive” down the steeper stretches. There were steps in places, but these had been fairly mangled from previous earthquakes. There were handrails and ropes for some sections to keep hold of to stay upright, which sure helped, but, still – handrails and ropes and 4×4? Where was our easy stroll downward?!!

It was so difficult and unpleasant – and hot and sticky – that none (0) of us took any photos. We were too busy grappling between rocks and hard places to think of extracting our cameras out of our backpacks.

But all things must come to pass – including bad things. We finally make it down to our camp with our tents already set up by our porters. And locals in nearby tents were selling… beer! Hurray!

Read on…

Hi folks!

Though, as you know, I love my volcanoes, I’ve only investigated Indonesian ones just the once – at New Year 2018: my second further from the center experience (the first came two years earlier – New Year 2016: Kilimanjaro (Tanzania); the third – New Year 2019: Ecuador). Yet Indonesia boasts more volcanoes active since the year 1800 (and since 1950) than anywhere else in the world. Clearly I had some Indonesian-volcanism catch-up too do…

But it’s not just the great many volcanoes in Indonesia that are the attraction. There are also plenty of business prospects there (which we’re actively pursuing) + a great many historical objects + a great many beautiful natural must-sees: not just catch-up needed, but ASAP-catch-up at that!…

And that ASAP catch-up came in the form of a trek up to the top of the active volcano Mount Rinjani.

First – brief backgrounder:

• Mount Rinjani is situated on the small Indonesian island of Lombok.
• It’s one of the most beautiful and meditative-contemplative (for the viewer) volcanoes I’ve ever seen with my own two eyes – including from its highest peak:

Read on…

Question: what does the monumentally massive Putorana Plateau have in common with… the Indian Ocean? Rather – some of the islands located in it ->

Yes – for example, Mauritius (been) and Réunion. Well, I have a theory – a hypothesis – about how they may be connected to Putorana…

Under Réunion (a French colony department), there currently happens to be situated a hotspot – a small area under the (Indian) lithospheric (tectonic) plate where the underground magma for some reason comes real close to the surface of the plate. When the hotspot punched through the plate, Réunion came into being (this is millions of years ago, of course). And that’s how plenty of other islands and archipelagos and atolls in the Indian Ocean were created, including Mauritius and Maldives. The plate slowly moved (for millions of years) over the hotspot, and every dozen million years or so – another punch-through and another new island!

Ok. That’s the islands covered. Now for some land-based volcanism to continue the theme…

Read on…

The Putorana Plateau is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places in the world, that’s for sure. That is… in good weather (just like Kamchatka and the Kurils). I keep writing that – “in good weather” – all the time of late. I should abbreviate it: GW. So yes – in GW, the landscapes here are simply mind-blowing:

Read on…

Norilsk business and places of interest: done. But up here in the Far North, there’s actually another place of interest to the adventurous (and well-heeled) tourist, albeit 300 kilometers to the east, and only accessible by helicopter (told you!), and that is the Putorana Plateau.

Briefly, the Putorana Plateau is simply… a magnificently marvelous mountainous area! It’s not quite Kamchatka, of course, but it still gets a full five Ks as per my (KKKKKaspersky Tourism Awesomeness Categorization System) classification. Oh yes: top marks (there is no KKKKKK). Just to remind: 5K = unique, monumental and complex. Not bad for a region you might think is only good for extreme cold and nickel and copper extraction )…

5K it is, but that doesn’t immunize it from downsides…

Downside one: the weather. It’s practically never good around here. Very much reminiscent of Kamchatka or the Kurils.

Read on…

Of course, we weren’t expecting clear, sunny skies all day – every day – on our Kurils-2022 expedition. We weren’t even expecting the light showers that fall in places like the Côte d’Azur or Costa Brava that get swiftly shooed away by warm winds. This is the Kurils, baby – why a cyclone can kick in and shroud the islands in fog for days. But we were hoping for at least a little sun – like what we had back in 2019…

In particular, we were hoping for sun on our Ushishir day(s). Here’s why:

And from the other side… ->

Read on…

If asked where the most beautiful, magical, goose-bumping, entrancing, OMGing place is on the planet is, what would be your answer?

I guess there’d be as many answers to the question as there are stars in the sky, and none would be wrong – for beauty is always in the eye of the beholder…

Some might answer – the Grand Canyon; others – the view down Madrid’s Gran Via; yet others – the reflections in a puddle in their garden! Some prefer man-made things, others natural. I like both, but my favorite of all happens to be natural. And this is it:

…At least – in good weather.

Yes folks, this is the one – the ultimate, the very best of all the best must-see places on the planet, including all my Top-100 places. It is the King of the Volcanoes – Krenitsyn volcano, on the volcanic island of Onekotan – one of the Kurils:

And when I say it’s the most beautiful place on the planet, I reckon it could very well be yours too – if you were ever to behold it. For “I’ve been around”, as it were. I’ve been globetrotting for the last quarter-century visiting a great many places on business while also getting to see what those places have on offer in terms of their sights of interest and beauty. I’ve also been on a great many vacations to some of the more unusually beautiful places on the planet. So, to come top of my list – trying not to blow my own trumpet as much as I can – really should stand for something. I hope so, anyway!…

Read on…