NOTES, COMMENT AND BUZZ FROM EUGENE KASPERSKY – OFFICIAL BLOG
September 20, 2023
After the brief Bali-interlude, we’re back in Kenya…
First – recap:
Pre-safari Nairobi – done.
Ol Pejeta reservation – done.
Lakes Naivasha and Nakuru – done.
Maasai Mara – done.
Next up, Amboseli National Park – here. Amboseli is more of the same wonderful wildlife but with the accent firmly on elephants – and with none other than Mount Kilimanjaro in the background…
September 15, 2023
The main course on our Kenyan safari was Maasai Mara, the country’s vast game reserve, which we caught at just the right time: during the wild animals’ mass migration. Huge herds of wildebeest, zebras and assorted other, smaller hooved beasts. But the main attraction is the wildebeest, and their particular migration is known as the great migration – up from Serengeti in neighboring Tanzania ->
A zillion zebras too:
September 7, 2023
After the brief Everest Base Camp trek video interlude, I continue today with my tales from the Kenyan safari side…
Pre-safari Nairobi – done.
Ol Pejeta reservation – done.
Next up – Lakes Naivasha and Nakuru (here). First – Naivasha…
It’s around 200km to Lake Naivasha from Ol Pejeta, which took us four or five hours by road. What made the journey a pleasant one were the good quality roads: astonishingly well-built, smooth, and rather new:
August 28, 2023
As you can work out from the title to this post, this year’s trip to Africa wasn’t my first lengthy vacation on the African continent. In early 2016 I was in Tanzania, where I scaled Kilimanjaro, went on a safari around the country’s savanna, and wunderbarred in Zanzibar. And details and pics of that African adventure were later all compiled into a hardback illustrated travelogue book – Awesome Africa.
Fast-forward to 2023, and here I am again – this time in Kenya!…
Africa: jaw-dropping landscapes, vast swarms of roaming wild animals, and the ultimate in stark continent-specific daily-life-with-a-difference! In short: all the ingredients for an amazing vacation!…
April 3, 2023
Hi folks!
I’ve already had a +1 of Singapore tourisms. Well here comes another – the one I was originally planning, and had wanted to see for years. And here it is – as if beckoning me from my hotel window:
I didn’t know what it was called before getting there, but was informed once we arrived – by a boulder ) ->
And it’s right in the center of Singapore:
September 6, 2022
After Ebeko volcano, the trans-Paramushir trek, and the climb up Krenitsyn volcano, this here travelogue-blog series of pics-and-tales could have been brought to a close. For the weather after these three was practically always like this:
…But that would be giving in. Better would be to press rewind and look at the Kurilian adventure from the very beginning…
April 12, 2020
NB: with this post about the place I visited before the lockdown I want to bring you some positivism, beauty and the reassurance that we will all get a chance to see great different places again. Meanwhile I encourage you not to violate the stay-at-home regime. Instead I hope you’re using this time for catching up on what you never seemed to find the time to do… ‘before’ :).
Once upon a time, long ago – in the spring of 2011, I found myself in the glorious city of Cape Town, the southernmost city of the continent of Africa and the country of South Africa. And it’s an amazing city! The Cape of Good Hope, penguins under palm trees, and the main thing – Table Mountain, which rises up above the city. We took the funicular that goes up it back then, but we were in a real rush with just half-an-hour to spare. This is way too short a time. You need hours to stroll around up top, and then to descend back down on foot (the path is only 700 meters long). This year, we had more time – but still not several hours! Oh well, at least I was here for the second time: I’d been dreaming of returning for a full nine years. So here I was. And I did manage to walk back down!…
I was in Cape Town, of course, not primarily for Table Mountain funicularing and strolling. I was here on business: our annual META-region partner conference (META = Middle East, Turkey and Africa) (though, technically Turkey is a Middle Eastern country!). As per, it was meetings, presentations, Q&As, formal dinners, partner awards, interviews, non-stop ‘cheesing’ for the cameras, and all that. And all that over and done with, also as per – micro-tourism!
April 10, 2020
NB: with this post about the place I visited before the lockdown I want to bring you some positivism, beauty and the reassurance that we will all get a chance to see great different places again. Meanwhile I encourage you not to violate the stay-at-home regime. Instead I hope you’re using this time for catching up on what you never seemed to find the time to do… ‘before’ :).
Woah my gosh! Finally – our January 2020 African holiday-expedition (Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Madagascar) was coming to and end. Boo!
Our final African port of call – central Madagascar. Hurray! For they say it’s full of lemurs, chameleons, geckos, frogs (and also mosquitoes)…
I’ll start with the lemurs. Delightful little animals. Rather daft too! They react positively to… bananas. And negatively to… their tails being pulled (not that we put this to the test!). They seem totally uninterested in humans – unless they have bananas!
March 2, 2020
Enough about dead nature (rocks). Now for some nature that’s alive. And let’s begin with trees.
Yet another absolutely wonderful tourist attraction in Namibia is the aloe Quiver Tree Forest. It comprises around 250 specimens of aloidendron dichotomum, known locally as the quiver tree. And it’s amazing (just like so many other things in Namibia, an amazing country)! The quiver trees here are huge and, according to internet, live for 200-300 years (how does the internet know? It’ll only turn 30 soon:).
But let’s get back on topic. Wanna see the photos of the mentioned above aloidendron dichotomum?
February 6, 2020
Skeleton Coast – done. Time to crack on further along our Namibian route. Next up – the country’s famous dunes, which are best seen at Sossusvlei. From Swakopmund (where we stayed the previous night) it’s around 400km. Sounds a lot, but when I tell you that those 400km were perhaps the most interesting and intense of any road I’ve been on – ever – well… the more distance the merrier!
For on this journey we experienced: flamingoes and pelicans, a mysterious mountain with endless views all around, a deep gorge, never-ending roads as straight as die, our crossing the Tropic of Capricorn, and our car getting stuck in the sand! Accordingly, plenty of words coming up describing this extraordinary journey, and plenty more photos too. // And it turns out I took 200 photos on this day – that’s one for every two kilometers!
