When I think back to my journey to Kamchatka, it feels like I visited another world. My job involves lots of travelling, as I'm a wildlife photographer. I'm not a person who can be easily impressed, but Kamchatka amazed me! It is a peninsula in the far east of Russia, very far from big cities, and it cannot be called a popular tourist destination. It is not easy to get there. People usually do it by boat or by helicopter, and maybe this is why the nature of the region still looks so wild and untouched. The rivers and streams (and there are more than 14,000 of them on the peninsula) cut through mountains and valleys, making the landscape wild and dramatic. The first thing I noticed was the volcanoes. Kamchatka has more than three hundred volcanoes, and some of them are still active. When I saw smoke rising from the crater of Klyuchevskaya Sopka, the highest volcano in Eurasia, I felt both afraid and excited. Walking on the black volcanic soil was like walking on another planet. I took some photos of the landscape, which looked like shots from a space-exploration film. The ground was warm in some places, and small hot springs bubbled out of the earth. I had seen geysers before Kamchatka, but nothing like the Valley of the Geysers! The guide said there were about 40 to 90 geysers, depending on how you count. Some of them erupt regularly every 15 minutes, and others once in a few hours. The temperature of the water is very high; it may be close to the boiling point, near 95-100°C. The guide explained that in 2007, a large landslide happened in the Valley, which dramatically changed the landscape of the place. Mud, rocks and sand buried many geysers, and some of them were flooded by water, but that was how a new lake was formed. It is cold Geysernaya Lake, and I felt privileged to see it, as not many people can. Along with being remote and difficult to reach, the Valley of Geysers is a very vulnerable place and needs protection. Tourists are allowed there in very small quantities. They are usually taken there by helicopter, and then they have to use special walking paths, so as not to cause any damage to the environment. There are lots of other amazing places on Kamchatka which I want to see when I go (hopefully!) there next time. And, of course, as a wildlife photographer, I took a lot of shots of the animals on Kamchatka. You probably know that Kamchatka has the highest concentration of brown bears in the world. In summer, you can see dozens of bears fishing for salmon in the same river at the same time. But I will write about that in my next entry...