Getting to the Altai Mountains
It was a long train journey to Barnaul. I was first sharing my cabin with a man who smelt bad, but soon he left and a large, and very loud family came on board. The father kept on trying to get one of his sons to speak to me in English. They were all very friendly. I let the kid play with my iPod. His mother was playing sudoku as I was, and even challenged me :)
As I previously mentioned, I was held by cops while waiting for the bus in Barnaul that night. If that wasn't bad enough, the bus journey was. It was a painful overnight journey in a small minibus crammed with 11 Russian tourists and me heading to our base in Ust Koksa, a small town in the Altai region. The place itself was very nice and peaceful, although visa registration at the local police station took 2hrs!
Once I got back to base, I met a couple of guides - Yura and Yevgeny. They showed me their drinking habits - shots of Komandirskiy cognac with a cigarette in between shots, until it was time for supper. Everyone would take turns making a toast for each round of drinks, a Russian tradition. Yura translated my toasts in Russia for the others.
Supper was traditional "borsh" soup (beetroot soup with vegetables and meat), and some meat and mashed potatoes - yum.
This was followed by more drinking around the fireplace, but this time it took the form of Nemiroff Vodka (spiced up with red chilis). After each shot, we would eat something small. If a shot is refused, you are asked "Ты меня уважаешь" (or "Do you respect me?" in English). I didn't dare refuse. And then off to "bed".
Trek to the Multa Lakes, Altai
The next morning, everyone began to split the required food supply for the nights out camping amongst the group aiming for an even split. However, I ended up with all the heavy stuff, mainly potatoes, pasta and onions, but also cans of meat, crackers, bread, biscuits, and Indian tea :)
It was only now that I realised that I was going out treking with only four of the group - Veronica, Christina, Olga and Anastasia - 'appy dayz' - and we were being guided by Yevgeny, nickname Zhenya. The girls were all from a Omsk, a city on the Trans-Siberian railway between Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk.
Finally, after 3 weeks travelling from one city to the next, I was spending some quality time in the wilderness.
The first day's walk was fairly relaxing, meandering through forests and navigating our way across rivers via very narrow logs of wood. Lunch that day consisted of an apple, half a cucumber and some walnuts.
Veronica, born in Kazakhstan, but moved to Russia in her teens, spoke excellent English (thank God, otherwise my experience could have been very different) and helped translate conversations etc. She was also loved all kinds of music, included Venus by Bananarama and Hotel California by The Eagles - very varied!
Camp that night was beside a beautiful lake with mountains in the distance.
As we began putting the tent up, I realised there was only one (no mistake) and I would be sharing with the four girls - yes, me and four girls in a single, standard 3-person tent (while Zhenya had a tent to himself).
Dinner was porridge, which I don't think I have had in over 15 years! And there was vodka of course. During dinner, I also found out how they were all huge fans of Mithun Chakraborty, a C-list Indian actor from the 80s. Bollywood movies were very popular during this time as very few American films were screened in the Soviet Union during this period.
The next morning, we went for a very cold dip in the lake, and then went for a leisurely stroll around the amongst the many surrounding mountains and lakes. The weather was awesome and scenery spectacular. It reminded me of Los Alerces and Torres del Paine in Chile, although the landscape was not quite as dramatic. Some of the girls were finding it difficult navigating from one rock to the next, and at one point Christina got into a little trouble as she was stranded on a rock and couldn't get to any of its neighbours - Zhenya and I volunteered to get very wet and help her.
Christina, who similarly studied economics was a trader, but her favourite hobby seemed to be taking photos of small animals and plants. I couldn't understand it, but maybe it's because Russia has very little in the way of large wildlife :) They were particularly fascinated by chipmunks, which they associated with Chippendales. I told them about the clubs known for male dancing.
One of the girls nicknamed me the "grasshopper" as I was walking fairly fast. Personally, I would have preferred something like a cheetah or leopard, but maybe this was Russian "large animal" syndrome.
That night, I experienced my first "banya", a Russian tradition that is similar to a sauna, but not quite. You enter into a relaxation area, which then leads into a wet room for bathing and then into a steam room. The steam room was extremely hot, much hotter than your typical sauna. After 5 minutes or so, Zhenya said it was time to go to the lake. We walked out of the banya, butt-naked, and ran into the lake, which was around 8 degrees celsius. Fantastic! After one more round, it was time for "chai" (tea), which Russians would typically drink afterwards in the relaxation area.
After returning back to our tents, we were approached by Russian militia. It was common for militia to check passports and park permits, but it seemed a completely pointless exercise, and I'm not sure why they needed massive guns on them. Even in the middle of the sparsely populated Altai region, Russia's Big Brother was watching.
Zhenya was trying hard to speak to me in English, so I let him borrow my phrasebook. He found it very entertaining and it was soon being misused - "Давай в постель", he asked me to tell one of the girls.
Veronica, Christina and I played a "word association" game before bed in the mosquito-infested tent, which was funny given the language barriers.
We would start walking each day around late morning, but the girls would always wake me up early. Zhenya would always be the last to wake, and once I had to collapse his tent to get him up - he wasn't too happy about that.
We had a tough walk ahead of us the next day, and Anastasia was keeping me company at the front. She was an unbelievable athlete - it was like she was on autopilot. She reminded me of Paula Radcliffe, but in a good way (if that's possible) - tall, slim and very fit. Zhenya was scared off snakes so I was asked to lead and look out for them (but I missed one apparently).
As we stopped for the night, beside a river with the sound of a 25m waterfall behind us, we had some borsh soup - this was a daily occurrence, but it tasted very good, even though the meat was preserved in lard. The sound of the waterfall, especially while sleeping, was very relaxing, and I had my best sleep in days.
That night, finally, we would have "макaрoни" (pasta). I was dead excited as finally my bag would become lighter. Up until now, we were reducing the girls' foodstock. I didn't have a bowl (only a mug), so I would always have dinner out of the pot it was cooked in. We also had Indian tea, which I'm afraid tasted nothing like as good my mum's back home. They were sad when I broke the news to them.
The next day would be my final day with the group as I had to return back early to catch my train to the Baikal Sea. We decided to climb to the top of one of the mountains that surrounded us. The climb was lots of fun, randomly finding a path, and the views from the top were stunning. Zhenya was so excited at the top that he wanted to listen to Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit and Can't Stop by the Chili Peppers on my iPod.
That night, Yura, the other guide, joined us for dinner with another group. He was going to take me back to base the next day. Surprise, surprise, he brought some Nemiroff Vodka with him. One of his group was cooking pork on the skew - shot of vodka, bite of pork, and so it went on until there was no vodka left. Yura also put on a mini fire show for us.
The next day, Veronica, Christina and I went to a nearby lake for a nice walk and another very cold swim in the turquoise, clear waters.
Zhenya was listening to as much music on my iPod as he could before I left - Nirvana, Queen, REM, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails.
I then said goodbye to the group (strangely quite emotionally with everyone in a line) and headed back to Ust Koksa with Yura. Yura was almost sprinting and we ended up walking for over 4hrs in the soaring heat with only a couple of 5min breaks, but I had a 120-litre backpack with me!
I couldn't wait to get back now - I felt and probably looked a mess. I wanted a bed, although it would be a wooden bunk until tomorrow, a shower, which would have to wait another day, any drink made by the Coca Cola Company and a shave.
After walking 4hrs, Yura stopped in some village and asked a local family for some tea and biscuits. I was then picked up in a car by his other group and headed to Ust Koksa. The car seat felt so comfortable - finally some cushioning for my butt, rather than rocks or logs of wood! The car broke down on the way, but a new tyre later, we were back at around midnight.
I chilled around town the next day before the bus left at 5pm for 15hr ride to Novosibirsk, but that didn't factor time for tyre punctures. Everyone on the bus was dropped off pretty much where they wanted to be - 40 or so passengers on the bus and we must have had 20 drop-off points, and the last one was mine - right outside my run-down hotel - couldn't wait to get in a freshen up. I knew I was back in a Russian city when I heard the screaching sound of brakes of the ever popular Lada's tumbling along.
The trip was a brilliant experience. I learnt a lot about the local culture. Everyone would share everything: food, drink, bowls, cutlery, water etc. The people were very friendly, everyone greeting anyone they came across. The banya was another example of Russia's very social culture. The region itself is beautiful too, albeit difficult to get to.
It also reminded me that we can live off very basic supplies, and enjoy it, and how "soft" one can get living in cities. I'm not used to drinking water direct from rivers and lakes with bits of whatever in it. I'm not used to the lack of cleanliness and not being able to have a shower twice a day. I'm not used to borsh soup and crackers with salami and cheese every day. But although I did miss the variety and "luxuries", I got used to it and was strangely enjoying it.
I learnt quite a few new Russian words, and I let the girls know it as I kept on repeating them whether relevant or not. But more importantly, my experience proved that one can overcome language and other difficulties when travelling and have fun, lots of it. I also hope that I have convinced at least some of the people I crossed paths with on this trip to travel beyond Russia's borders, which doesn't seem to happen very often for various reasons.
It has definitely been the highlight of my trip this far, and for that, a big thank you to Zhenya and the girls.
1 comment:
Loving it, keep'em coming.
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