Siberia 2018 - Day 15. Seoul

I landed in Inchon International Airport, Terminal 1, at about 6 am, and a few minutes later I was in the train heading for downtown Seoul. It was a piece of cake to buy my ticket and keep track of the few stops until I got to the Central Train Station. From here on it was uncharted territory with only a couple of oversimplified maps to guide me. I should add that my backpack was booked all the way to San Francisco, so I could enjoy myself without being loaded like a burrito.

Right away I stumbled upon the elevated Pedestrian Causeway, which runs at the level of a two-story building for about a mile. It is very nicely landscaped, gives you great views of the busy city below, and you don’t have to contend with traffic. What a brilliant invention! My only regret is that it doesn’t extend all over the city, so all too soon I had to go back to being a morning pedestrian zig-zagging my way through traffic.

My plan was to take the hop-on hop-off touristic bus, which presumably had two different routes. The bus does not start running until 9 am, so when I arrived to the starting point at 8 am the place was deserted. Don’t this people know that some of us take our tourism seriously and like to start early to enjoy the fresh of the morning? So I waited, and then I had to regret not sleeping in the plane between Irkutsk and Seoul, as my eyes started to close. It was only a cat nap, however, so the tiredness stayed with me for the rest of the day.

The ticket sales window opened at 8:45 am, at which time I was informed that only route A was operating. Rats! So I climbed on the Route A bus, and reveled on the luxury of being driven through this exciting Asian city. We drove past the Modern Art Museum, the old, Victorian-era railroad station, the emperor’s palace, and through a jungle of skyscrapers. One that I like looks as if I giant had cleaved it with an enormous ax.

I stepped down from the bus to visit the Jongmyo Shrine, which has been designated as a World Heritage place. It is a very holy enclosed park, with many self-standing shrines of great beauty, but what impressed me most was the Spirit Way, which is a path made of granite blocks that connects all the shrines. Visitors are kindly directed not to walk on this path, which is reserved for the spirits. I, of course, was glad to oblige since I had no intention of interfere with Korean spirits (or spirits of any other nationality for that matter).

I was sorely tempted to get off the bus at the market place, which like all Asian markets was full of enticing pots and pans, hardware, food stuffs, and handcrafts. Alas, I had promised myself I would start on my way back at noon, and I could just see myself staying in the market for hours and missing my plane. Instead I enjoyed the full ride, and stayed on the bus for a second ride, just so that I could get down at the old railroad station, from which I only had a 10-minute walk to get to the new Central Rail Station.

I got to the airport in plenty of good time to have a bowl of noodles for lunch, and to take a complimentary hot shower (I love this airport!). By the time I was done I had but a short wait until we started boarding the plane that would bring me back to San Francisco and my “normal” life. It is sad when an adventure comes to an end (but there is always the thrill of starting to plan the next adventure!).

Finis

Siberia 2018 - Day 14. Listwjanka

We got up early to catch the ferry that would take us across the Angara River, which is where the Baikal Limnological Institute and Museum is located. I was looking forward to visiting this museum and learning much about the physical limnology of the lake. I got my wish, and then some. The exhibits were very well done, and with some patience I could decipher at least the major titles of the maps and cross-sections.

Christine, Raimund, and I paid a bit extra for the privilege of squeezing ourselves on the tiny submarine used in the past to collect samples of organisms, sediments, and rocks. It gave me much appreciation for the dedication of the scientists who spent hours at a time in such a confined work space!

Did I mention that Lake Baikal has its own small population of seals? They are short and very fat, but accomplished swimmers, as we had a chance to corroborate in the portion of the museum devoted to the aquarium. We also saw living specimens of sturgeon, the ubiquitous omul, and a very strange looking yellow crab.

I wish I could summarize for you the many nifty limnologic features of the lake itself, but I am afraid I am not conversant enough with them to do them justice. Flashes include the fact that the lake has an overall counterclockwise pattern of circulation, and significant vertical variations in temperature and density, which together lead to significant seasonal changes. In the summer the epilimnion (the upper portion of the water column above the thermocline, roughly coincident with the photic zone) is significantly less dense than the underlying water (the hypolimnion), so the vertical structure is only disrupted by the odd deep diving of the seals. In the winter, however, the thermocline disappears (or is even reversed as surface water cools down to 4⁰C and achieves its maximum density), so the vertical structure is disrupted and oxygen-rich water sinks unto the deeper levels of the lake.

The museum also has a hall devoted to the history of the Earth, and the evolution of life throughout geologic time. Small and a bit imaginative, but attention grabbing nonetheless.

I also saw all sorts of geologic maps, but I have to confess that I have a hard time reading Russian geologic maps. I am not sure if this is because of the color scheme, or the fact that their chronostratigraphic divisions are different than the ones we use (I suspect that in some instances they are tectono-stratigraphic divisions, atuned to their own conceptions of tectonic processes). In any case, they show Lake Baikal as occupying a rift, but the extensions of said rift seem to be more imaginary than real.

Having saturated myself with limnological information I went out toward the town of Listwjanka,to catch up with my group. It was rainy and very windy, and the placid Lake Baikal had turned into a sea with big braking waves. I was hanging for dear life to my trusty umbrella, rushing the parts of the waterfront that were being sprayed by the braking waves, when I finally spotted Christine coming out of a souvenir shop. She didn’t mind turning around and accompanying me in the purchase of a couple of gifts, and after that we joined the rest of the group in the search of a place to eat. We decided to try Mongolian food, inside a genuine Mongolian Yurt. It was good, but to be honest I have but little recollection of what we ate (cabbage leaves stuffed with ground lamb?). My mind was already thinking on flying back home ☹

After lunch we went back to the museum, where we had left our backpacks, and a few minutes later we boarded the small bus that was to take us back to Irkutsk. Once there I had about an hour of free time, which I used to go out to buy a book for Ronnie to add to his international library. Packed and ready I said goodbye to my friends (parting is such sweet sorrow), got a ride to the airport, and at 10 pm departed to Seoul. I loved visiting Siberia, and have now added to my bucket list a trip to Georgia, and a trip to eastern Siberia. I don’t know when, but I will be back!

Siberia 2018 - Day 13. Schumicha to Port Baikal

The morning was slow in developing because our train will not come by until 4:30 pm. In the meantime we took the opportunity to walk 4 km down the tracks, which actually turned out to be pretty fun given that we were not lugging our backpacks. We stopped when we reached a remarkably well-kept train station (as it turns out, upkeep of the stations, and their use as Bed & Breakfast outfits is part of the grand plan on the part of the railroad company to boost tourism to Lake Baikal). We were there, enjoying ourselves, when in the distance we heard the steam whistle of a locomotive. Five minutes later a special train pulled by a beautiful steam engine pulled into the station, and a gaggle of tourists swarmed the station; there were the Americans, being led by a large, loud guide in shorts, the Germans wondering where to buy a beer, and the Chinese guys snapping selfies. The best were the Chinese ladies, who floated in flowing silks to their photo shoots, posing gracefully on the railroad ties, the front of the locomotive, or against the many colorful flowers. Different strokes for different folks!

Once we were back from our outing we decided to have a comfortable lunch laying on the beach, with a generous contribution of smoked omul courtesy of Christine (omul is a fish that is very abundant in lake Baikal; it looks a little like a trout, and smoking it is the local pastime).

Finally, our train came in and we settled for a pleasant 2-hour ride to Port Baikal, right where the Angara River is born. We were leaving behind the colorful tiny hamlets and headed for the bigger towns of Port Baikal and Listwjanka. I was excited to reach Port Baikal, which for some reason I imagined to be a hardy fishermen’s bastion, right at the edge of a wild frontier. As if to highlight the fact that our nature adventure was coming to a close the clouds moved in, and by the time we reached the end station a light rain made the afternoon look drab and uninviting. Alas, Port Baikal turned out to be a colorless collection of small houses and neglected boats, and five minutes seemed to be all that was necessary to take in the sights.

The hotel turned out to be in the second floor of the train station, and Christine and I lucked out with the Presidential suite (the only inconvenience being that we were right under the eves of the roof, and the sloping ceiling was a lurking trap). Being the larger room, it soon evolved into the communal space where all gathered to have a drink, play games, and occasionally get knocked on the head against the sloping ceiling.

Siberia 2018 - Day 12. Polowinnaja to Schumicha

This particular death march was not bad at all, partly because I have been consuming some of the supplies I carried on the third day, and partly because we were not in a hurry and I could take my sweet time covering the distance. I emphasized the later point by stopping every 2 km to rest my shoulders and read some of my book. I am reading Tom Clancy’s “Executive Orders”, a tome of 1,355 pages, out of which I have only read up to page 588.

Once I reached the small hamlet of Schumicha I entered another wrinkle in time, where there was not much to do besides having borscht for lunch, lazing under the sun, and despair about the lack of beer. I got tired of laying under the sun and went indoors, and in so doing I missed the most exciting event of the evening: A steam locomotive pulled into the tiny station (exciting), and disgorged a gaggle of Chinese tourists who spread all over the hamlet to take selfies of themselves against the background of flowers and wooden houses (very exciting). In the meantime, Christine led a raiding expedition of thirsty Germans on the assault of the train to purchase all of their beer supply (extremely exciting). The Chinese tourists left after half an hour, but our little refrigerator now hosts 20 half-liter cans of the finest Russian beer!

Siberia 2018 - Day 11. Day at Polowinnaja

Sadly, I don’t know how to relax ☹ No sooner were we finishing breakfast that I donned my boots and hat to go for a walk. That broke the after-breakfast Kaffeklatch, and Christine and Zsuzsa decided to join me (Zsuzsa is a molecular biologist from Hungary, and is a fun gal). Our plan was to follow the creek upstream, although we didn’t get too far until the path ran against the steep bank of the stream. We then detoured along the side of the mountain, where we saw a rather peculiar anthill, built out of little bits of wood. Christine and Zsuzsa decided to make a photographic study of the funny-looking structure, whithout putting attention to the thousands of ants that were milling around not only in the anthill, but also within 10 m in all directions. In no time whatsoever we had ants crawling up our pants, so we were forced into a shameful retreat.

Back at the resort we opted for going to the lake. While the others went for a walk along the railroad tracks, I went down to the shore. The creek forms a pretty cove here, and there is a bit of beach, so I thought I could get my feet wet. Ha! The water is brutally cold and a toe is all of my anatomy I was willing to risk to frost bite. So I sat on a rock and pondered at the origin of the lake. A bit of further research tells me that there are some similarities between Baikal and Lake Tangaňica, in the East African Rift Valley. Most of the rift lakes of Africa are fairly shallow (say less than 500 m), but Lake Tangaňica, albeit not as long as Lake Baikal, has a maximum depth of 1,400 m. I am going to have to look further into the similarities between both lakes.

After lunch I announced my intention to  go fishing, thinking that I could sit quietly by the creek pretending to do something while listening to a recorded book in my iPhone. Rainer, a young man of maybe 30, said that he would like to accompany. Rats! Well, I like him quite a bit, so I quickly made the transition from recorded book to companion, and the two of us went down to the foreman to borrow fishing poles. He had one with a reel and a lure, which was better used in the lake where there were fewer things to tangle with (and I graciously let Rainer have it), and another one that was simply a stick with a line tied to it, and for which I needed to find some bait. We promised everyone fish for dinner, and happily went in our adventure. For lack of bait I plucked a poisonous mushroom, thinking that strands of it could simulate a worm (and that if I could not hook a fish perhaps I could poison it). In the last minute Jörn decided to come with us, to document our efforts with his expensive camera (I would put him also somewhere around 30). Unfortunately, the whole adventure had started on the wrong premise: Rainer thought I was an experienced fisherman (no doubt because I remind them all of Hemingway), and I assumed he had been fishing before. Much to the delight of Jörn and his camera the whole outing was a routine worth of Laurel and Hardy, with tangled lines, thumbs pricked by the hooks, the lure getting caught in something every single time, and the eventual loss of said lure (which the foreman had entrusted to our care because it was the only one he had—we compensated him for it, but keep in mind we are in the sticks here, so he will have to wait until he goes back to town before he can buy another).

In the afternoon we indulged once again in the banya, with the crazy Germans jumping into the freezing stream in between periods of getting cooked by heat and steam. Don’t they know they can get a cold doing that? I was happy to sweat for a little bit, and to sit in the cool open air in between, but waited until I got back to our house before taking a shower. But enough of this life of ease. Tomorrow we get to walk fully loaded to our next stop, 8 km away. I am not looking forward to this particular death march, and would have rather taken the train, but tomorrow is Wednesday, and that is the rest day of the train. Rats!

Siberia 2018 - Day 10. Arshan to Polowinnaja

Today we are heading back to Lake Baikal. We started “early” for this crowd (i.e., around 10 am), with Igor at the wheel. It turns out his first and only grandson is celebrating his birthday, so he is rejoining his wife in Irkutsk for the celebration. Naturally this brought the conversation around to Ronnie, and both proud Opas had a chance to boast about their respective Enkelkinder 😊

On the way we engaged in some conversation about what his opinions were, as a businessman, regarding the political communist regime. He assured us that he had free rein to engage in his business and we left it at that (it has never a good idea to probe very deeply on politics). I will add that, like in Cuba, I do not see evidence of a crushing bureaucracy or police presence, although I see a certain shabbiness in public works and public transport.

We drove to the train station is Sludjanka, an unattractive train town in the southern tip of Lake Baikal, and after waiting for about 45 minutes boarded the extremely slow Baikal Express. This train runs the 75 km between Port Baikal and Sludjanka once a day on Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It leaves Port Baikal early in the morning, takes 5 hours to get to Slubianka, and comes back at 1 pm for another 5 hour “express” ride. Every 10 km or so there is a small hamlet, and the train constitutes their life line bringing eggs, milk, and the odd tourist. It is a very slow ride, but it is extremely beautiful, with the lake extending farther and farther with every passing kilometer. My estimate of 10-20 km wide at the southern end can now be increased to 30-50 km wide (and I recall reading that the lake is 80 km at its widest).

Our new abode is called Polowinnaja, and is located about midway between the two end stations. A small creek has formed a mini-estuary at the mouth of a wooded valley, and an easy walk of 500 m brought us into a beautifully landscape of wooden houses, sprinkled among grass lawns and vegetable beds and greenhouses. Every structure is spic and span, carefully decorated with wood carvings around the windows and antiques. We are spending two nights here, so tomorrow we will have plenty of opportunity to go hiking, sunbathe along the shore of the lake, read, or go fishing. Not bad, not bad at all.

Siberia 2018 - Day 9. Hiking in the Sajan Mountains

It rained all night, which delayed our departure. Today everyone can do what he or she wants, but we all decided that it was the perfect day to take a walk up the mountains. One very ambitious group is going to try for the top, a climb of perhaps 1,200 m gain in elevation. Another group, formed by Christine, Raymond and me, decided to take it a little bit easier, and instead walked up the canyon to the waterfall. The hikers had a good time, but the path was steep and the clouds were too low, so eventually they made it to the tree line and called it good.

We joined a healthy crowd of locals going up the stream. The first 100 m of the path were lined by a gauntlet of merchants, all pretty much offering the same merchandise. Prominent among the things being sold were woolen clothes made in Mongolia. There were warm-looking hats, sweaters, vests, belly warmers, underpants, socks, and gloves. I couldn’t resist and bought myself two pairs of woolen socks, to replace the ones I have with holes in them. Christine bought a set of vodka shot glasses with every imaginable symbol representing Lake Baikal in them.

Another popular item for sale were empty plastic bottles, ranging in size from quart to gallon sizes. This is Siberia, so of course there is a miraculous spring somewhere in the park, and of course folks have to collect and drink the water. There was a long line to collect the water, which flowed through the bronze statue of a small Mongol child; the forest around it was beautifully adorned with brightly colored ribbons. I didn’t try the water, but I could see it had a yellowish tinge to it, and I was told it had a distinctive iron taste.

The walk up to the waterfall was just about perfect for me. I have been suffering a bit from sciatica, and my knees have not fully recovered from Mount Roraima, so I was glad to take on a modest challenge. The waterfall itself was cute but not super impressive. It is really a narrow, twisting part of the gorge where the water is forced to rush through, creating an effect akin to a “twisted waterfall”. Some fools were trying to clamber up the steep sides to get a better look, so clearly lack of common sense is not limited to the visitors of Bridal Veil in Yosemite.

On the way back we stopped at a bar that specializes in beer. There were four coolers on the left displaying 20 different kinds of bottled beer, but the real attraction was a wall with draft dispensers for yet another 20 types of beer stored in barrels. Each dispenser had a clear plastic bottle attached to it, indicating that the standard measure is one liter. We upset the system a bit by asking for three glasses (1.5 liters in total), but made up for it by purchasing 3 additional liters to go.

Today we treated ourselves to a banya or sauna. I think I have already said that this is a very popular way to bathe here in Siberia, although the average citizen might indulge only once every couple of weeks. We are visitors, so our record so far is two times per week. I hope we keep this frequency up, because it is really a great relief to sore muscles.

Siberia 2018 - Day 8. The Tunkinsky Valley

Today we went on a tour of the Tunkinsky Valley that separates the New Sajan Mountains—a ragged mountain chain that has magnificent peaks and extends almost all the way to Mongolia, 100 km away—from the Old Sajan Mountains, which are a denuded range of small rounded hills. The front of the New Sajan Mountains looks very much like eastern scarp of the Sierra Nevada of California, and I suspect that the valley we will be following—pompously referred to as the Valley of Volcanoes in the tourist brochures—is a half graben formed by extension and the rise of the mountains.

Our host Igor is also our guide for the day. He is a happy soul who speaks just a little bit of German, but that doesn’t slow him down in keeping a torrent of information flowing in rapid fire Russian, who our translator Lara somehow manages to process in real time. Igor is 55 years old, and together with his wife runs a comparatively large guest house. Right now they have ourselves and a group of 20 youngsters from a hockey team, so the place is buzzing with activity.

Our first stop was of great interest to me. It was in the uphill end of the town of Arshand, where in 2014 a debris flow came down from the mountain and hit a new apartment building with a wave of mud and debris that left a mud mark 5 m high all along the side of the building. The windows imploded in the ground floor, but the building held otherwise and the loss of life was limited to the disappearance of a curious observer. The debris adjacent to the building has now been removed, and the town built a diversion channel that appears narrow and insufficient to my eyes (unfortunately they are operating under the often held belief that such an event only happens every 50 to 100 years, so there is only so much money they want to spend in it).

A big thing here in the park is to take the waters. We traveled a good 30 km—enjoying fantastic views of the Sajan Mountains—just to reach a spring that is claimed to be good for all sorts of ailments. “Drink, drink” Igor recommended emphatically, so we dutifully filled our water bottles with crystalline Sajan water.

At the far end of our excursion we visited a Buddhist/Shamanic temple that is reportedly one of the very sacred places of Siberia. It is Saturday and a big ceremony was underway, with five or six monks singing prayers and blessing the many offers of food that the faithful had brought with them. They were older men in saffron and scarlet robes, and had the funny characteristic that each of them was wearing a different type of tattered had, including a typical Tibetan hat and a hunters cap.

We have definitely crossed and ethnic line in coming to the Tunkinsky National Park. The folks here are definitely Asiatic in origin, although they look a bit different than the folks in Mongolia. Locally they are referred to as “mountain men” or Buriats, and according to Igor they refused being incorporated to the empire of Gengis Khan, who coined the word “buriats” to refer to them as “traitors”. Eventually this same people sent word to the Tzar in Saint Petersburg to request becoming a part of the Russian empire, who agreed and sent the Cossacks in the 17^th century to annex Siberia.

On the way back we stopped at Orlik, a hot springs resort town, where hundreds of families had come to spend the weekend. Lunch took a while because all the small restaurants were super busy. Likewise, the hot spring pool was crowded but we all had a kick very seriously taking the waters.

Our final stop was at one of the six small basaltic cinder cones found near Arshan. I was hoping for something unique that I could impress my fellow travelers with, but no, it was a pretty run of the mill cinder cone without crustal or mantle nodules, nor cool bombs. Igor was very proud of their cinder cones, however, so we all admired the outcrop and took many pictures.

It has started to rain, so we are not sure what we will be doing tomorrow.

Siberia 2018 - Day 7. Lake Baikal to Arshan

I had some time to look in the US Geological Survey website, and found that indeed the consensus is that Lake Baikal is a rift, based on seismic reflection and seismic refractions surveys. It even has a small hydrothermal vent somewhere in the southern portion. It would have to be a very young rift, however, because of the match in the geology of both banks, the fact that the lithosphere has not thinned considerably, and the fact that “the crack” is 1,637 m deep and the super steep slope has not failed. Seismic reflection shows a wedge of sediments, nearly 1,000 m thick at the base of “the crack”, which has led some sedimentologists to speculate that it would take several million years for such a great thickness of sediments to accumulate (I suspect that one or two submarine landslides in such a narrow basin would be enough to deposit such thickness as debris flows). I need to look into this in more detail once I am home.

Our morning activity was going to include a boat ride in the lake, a treat that we were all looking forward to. The morning was cool, and there was a good wind blowing, so I could well imagine myself as an intrepid explorer braving the elements on the stern of the Icebreaker Angara. Ah, but they had not said a ship ride, had they? When we got to the shore we found out that the ride was going to be in tow tiny outboard boats. Suddenly the waves looked enormous compared to the side of the cockleshells we were going to venture in. To add to the excitement our young pilots thought it was extremely fun to pretend they were driving speed boats, and gleefully shot themselves like arrows at the incoming waves. It was exhilarating, but I for one ended the rise slopping wet. We had a great view of the southern shore of the lake, however, as well as of the considerable mountain masses that form its shores.

At lunch we had a delicious serving of fish and potatoes, and that made me think that so far the people, food, and towns we have found are very European in aspect and origin. We are very close to the border with Mongolia, so I would have expected at least some Asiatic influence.

After dinner we boarded a couple of vehicles, and headed west to the Tunkinsky National Park, where we will spend three nights. I now really feel that we are getting closer and closer to Mongolia, in the direction of the Altai Mountains. Oh, look, there is a small Buddhist temple! Actually, some of the folks here combine the Buddhist rituals with older shamanic beliefs, and the temple is adorned gaily with thousands of ribbons tied to the trees, each a prayer for a special favor or simply for the well being of the community and the world.

In the distance we see three tiny hills, set against a background of jagged peaks. Our driver described them as volcanoes, and that reminded me of the small basaltic cinder cone I saw with Zoe and John in Mongolia last summer. More about these small volcanoes tomorrow.

We arrived at the small town of Arshan, which will be our center of operations, around 5 pm, and like the good group of Germans we are made an emergency stop at the local supermarket to load on beer and vodka. We might suffer hunger and exhaustion, but we shall never suffer from thirst!

There is a small river running through the town, with a channel that has been obviously excavated and straightened. The abundance of big boulders bespeaks of a channel that with severe rain turns into a raging torrent and the venue for destructive debris flows. As it happens, the guest house we are staying in is located right against the bank of this channel, so it is a good thing that we have had a glorious sunny day.

Siberia 2018 - Day 6. Reaching Lake Baikal

As it turns out I was not ready, but I will tell you about that later.

Breakfast started a bit before 7 am, at Madam Galina’s, where she managed to accommodate all 11 of us around her small kitchen table. It was a symphony of delicious Russian foods, including the ever-present blinis, which can be filled with home-made marmalade (rhubarb, cherry, or strawberry in our case), or with slices of cucumber and tomatoes covered with sour cream. There were also hard-boiled eggs and any number of baked goods; I had my eye on one of the latter, and as soon as it seemed decent I asked Christine to pass me a piece (we were tight elbow-to-elbow, so the only way to get what you wanted was for it to pass from hand to hand to your plate). I was surprised when bit into what I supposed to be an apple cobbler, only to find out that it was a rice and fish cake. It was pretty yummy, although not what most people would think about as breakfast food (none of my companions gathered the courage to try it!).

Afterward we hurried to the train station, only to have to wait over an hour for our train. We were headed for the southwest end of the lake, which resembles a giant banana (“giant” may be a bit of an understatement, for if you were to superimpose it on a map of Germany it would span the whole country). It turns out that there were many folks waiting for the same train, a good third of whom had backpacks and tents, and they were no doubt intent on enjoying the last days of summer in the great outdoors. I particularly noticed a goodly amount of senior citizens, wearing backpacks that must date back to the time of the Revolution.

The first third of the trip crossed flat valleys with extensive industry in the background, and hundreds of dachas or tiny houses in the foreground. Russians (as well as many Europeans) are crazy about their summer gardens, where they raise all sorts of fruit and vegetables, and like nothing more than spending the summer days at their dachas, living the simple life of a craft agriculture.

Eventually we took to the mountains, and the landscape was replaced first by rolling hills and later by proper mountains, covered by an endless forest of aspens and pine trees. And then it was time to get down, right in the middle of nowhere! Lara’s master plan had us walking the last few kilometers to the lake shore, down a pretty steep valley. This is when things started to get rough. I believed I had packed only the absolutely necessary for my Latin America trip, and I had left the few souvenirs I had collected in Monclova, with my parents, but I still ended with my big and small backpacks (Ok, so the computer, the instant coffee, the sugar, and the bottle of whiskey cannot be called absolute necessities, but a man needs his basic creature comforts). Normally I would carry my small backpack in the front, an arrangement that is good for a few hundreds of meters, but trying to go down a steep slope without being able to see where I was putting my feet turned out to be quite dangerous, so I piled the small backpack on top of the big one and managed to get down the slope. The stress on my shoulders turned out to be too much, however, so once in the flats I went back to the older arrangement, and in an hour or so was rewarded with my first view of Lake Baikal. It was beautiful, but I was somewhat surprised that the lake seemed too narrow. I would think maybe 10-20 km wide.

We had our lunch facing the lake, and everybody was in good spirits, waiting for the local train to go by. Then started the via crucis. We were going to hike 10 km along the tracks! Ay Dios Mío! It was pretty miserable. The path on the side of the tracks was made of angular ballast that easily flipped when you walked on it, and the railroad ties were installed at an uncomfortable 50 cm-spacing that made us look like a row of galeots walking with chains in our ankles. I was dead by the time we got to the small town of Kultuk at the very southwest end of the lake, where we will stay for the night. We arrived around 5 pm, in time to take a quick shower and a well-deserved nap before we were called to the dining room for a delicious dinner of sausage and potatoes, and a whole collection of side dishes of raw Baikal fish with dill, sliced vegetables (we are reaping the best of the best in terms of cucumbers and tomatoes), and numerous bottles of beer. The beer is served in 1.5-liter plastic bottles of the type used for drinking water, recently filled from the barrel that our hostess keeps in the cellar.

Our hostess had also fired up the banya or sauna, which was the perfect treatment for my aching muscles. The rest of the group was planning on getting together later at night and carousing, but I made a bee line to my bed and fell promptly asleep. I am going to have to chose my battles, and avoid in as gracious a way as I can another of these death marches!

Siberia 2018 - Day 5. In search of history at Irkutsk

I managed to stay in bed until 5 am, and drinking coffee in the kitchen of our apartment for another couple of hours while I wrote yesterday’s blog and studied the map of the city. Then I discovered that the Icebreaker Angara was laying at anchor in the river port of the city and I just had to go see it (I was under the mistaken impression that this was the icebreaker that Alexander Koltschak was associated with). It is pretty far from the city center, but I thought I could get there by using the trolley, so I tiptoed my way out of the apartment and took to the streets. Of course I was immediately recognizable as a tourist because I walked with the map open in front of me. This prompted a sweet little old lady to come to my rescue, and in rapid fire Russian she asked me where I wanted to go. I showed her the map, which she studied with care, and then let loose another volley of Russian in which I managed to recognize the word aftobus and a number that sounded like 567,873—I took this to be the number of the bus I was supposed to take. So I pointed to the first bus that came and made the pantomime of boarding; she shook no with her head; pointed to another bus; and shook her head affirmatively as I got ready to board. God bless little old ladies!

The bus was headed in the right direction, and I could follow its progress in my map. Then it took a turn to the left and entered city center; no worries, that is what buses do. But then it made a 180 degree turn, and headed for exactly the opposite direction, and all the while I kept a close reference to our location on the map. All that I needed was for it to turn left on Lenin Boulevard, but it foiled me by making a sharp right on Rossiyskaya Avenue and going over the Angara! Jetz bin ich in die Sose! And so started my unplanned odyssey across Siberia (actually, across the outskirts of Irkutsk). It now occurs to me that my good Samaritan had probably never read a map, and she had just sent me in the best direction she knew how. Curse little old ladies!

After what seemed like hours (but was only 45 minutes) we finally reached the end of the line and I had to explain to the driver that I needed to go back. I showed him the map, which he turned around several times, only to point me bad-humoredly to another bus heading in the opposite direction. Doesn’t anybody know how to read maps anymore?

By the way, buses here are 20 rubles, and looking in my coin purse I noticed I only had 14 rubles left. I of course have all sorts of large denomination bills, but I could just see the scowl on the driver if I attempted to pay with a large bill. I thought about trying to sneak out without paying (here you pay the bus when you descend), but I could also imagine facing a stern Soviet policeman and trying to explain the unexplainable. So I braced myself and payed with a large bill; as expected I got a big scowl and received in exchange a handful of coins. I waited for a complement of a few bills, but the driver shamelessly pocketed my bill and proceeded to ignore me. Hmm, perhaps there is some rule that the largest amount of change you can get is 30 rubles, and tough on you if you gave them a big bill of 50 rubles. It took me five minutes to figure out that 20 rubles of fare and 30 rubles of change made exactly 50 rubles, which is the “big” bill I had paid with. Duh!

Back in square one I did take the tram (15 rubles), as I had initially planned, but the stupid thing turned left instead of right at the one intersection, so I ended in the airport rather than at the port. No big deal because I just rode it back to the wrong term, but I was really upset that for 15 rubles (US$ 0.25) I could have gone from the airport to downtown, whereas when I had arrived I had paid the taxi 3,500 rubles (US$ 50). Information is money to be sure.

I did finally make it to the port, and was glad to see it was only 10:30 am. The “Angara” looked awfully small for a Polar explorer, and had certainly seen better times, but I was nonetheless gad to be there. I caused a small commotion when I asked if I could visit the boat, which now hosts the Marine Museum of Irkutsk, but everyone was very nice and I finally was invited to go in (at the end I found out they opened at 11:00 am, but they made an exception for me once they found out I was Mexican 😊). It was a tiny museum, but it had a gift to the scientific traveler: A geologic map of the shores of Lake Baikal, printed in 1880.

Before I elaborate on the geologic map I have to tell you that Lake Baikal is unusual in that it is extremely deep. Lara told me that she had been at the Lake in November, and that the lake was frozen and she had taken a car tour across the frozen surface. Pretty cool, but I wonder if she knew that if the ice had broken the car would have sunk 1,637 m! That is 5,400 ft! How on Earth was such a deep narrow basin formed? I have assumed that it is a rift, formed by tectonic extension, so imagine my surprise when I looked in detail to the geologic map and found that the upper Paleozoic rocks that crop around the shores are folded, and that the axes of the fold are continuous from shore to shore! The only thing left is for it to be an erosional landform, such as the remnant of an incredibly deep valley glacier (the basins of the Great Lakes are the remnants of continental ice sheet glaciers). I need to mull on this hypothesis.

My helpful docent invited me to see a video about the icebreaker, and I then learned that it was one of two icebreakers that had spent their lives plying the waters of Lake Baikal (so they never saw Polar duty). The first one, the Icebreaker Baikal, was used to transport the Trans-Siberian Train and its aristocratic passengers across Lake Baikal, whereas the smaller Icebreaker Angara was used for smaller cargo and less affluent passengers. The icebreakers were floated in the early 1900’s, but pretty soon showed they were not a match for the deep winter ice, and ran only between April and November until the 1930’s, when they fell in disrepair and were abandoned to the ravages of the weather. The “Baikal” eventually sank, but the “Angara” was rescued in the 1970’s and has been used as a museum ever since. I was also given a tour of the engine room and learned that it was a steam engine with three pistons, one smaller than the other to take full advantage of the residual steam (a similar type of engine was in wide use among the Navy ships of World War II because of its simplicity, reliability, and flexibility on the type of fuel that can be burned in its furnace; in the case of the icebreakers the fuel of choice was brown coal from the Altai Mountains).

By the time I got back to downtown I was hungry and tired. I took care of the hunger at a donner kebab shop, and afterward decided to get back home to take care of the tiredness. But then I felt guilty for wasting prime tourist time, so I walked a long distance to go visit the Museum of the City of Irkutsk (only to find out they rest on Wednesdays), and on the way back stopped at the History Museum (a bit lame, except for a very cool exhibition about the inhabitants of the taiga), and the Natural History Museum, which had an excellent display about the many plants, mammals, and birds of Siberia.

I am now back at home, going brain dead, but will go meet the group at 8 pm to have dinner at the local Brauerei (trust a bunch of thirsty Germans to find the good beer in town!).

Tomorrow we get going. The plan is to leave early in the morning, take the tram to the train station, and at 9 am take the train to the mountains overlooking the shore, near where the Angara River exists the lake. I am ready!

Siberia 2018 - Day 4. Assembling the group in Irkutsk

Most of the group is arriving sometime today, so I have the morning free to explore Irkutsk. Cool! I started around 6 am, walking in wonderment about the funny Cyrillic script I see in every sign around me; it will take a while to learn to decode it, and I regret that in the meantime I didn’t put a bit more attention to the name of the streets. As it turns out, you can get almost anywhere following the Lenin, Karl Marx, and Yuri Gagarin Boulevards. The helpful Siberians have also painted a green stripe down the sidewalk, which if followed will take you to the main sights and parks.

The old part of Irkutsk was built on an inner meander of the Angara River, which is another wonderful landmark for the lost tourist. It was in 1661 that a group of Cossacks (tough hombres who constituted the only law in the vast territory of Siberia) established a camp at the confluence of the Irkut and Angara Rivers (the city celebrated its 350^th anniversary in 2011), which by the ealy1700’s had become the capital of Russian Siberia, having oversight of a territory that extended from the Urals to the Pacific, easily twice as large as the whole of Europe. The city saw bitter fighting between The Red and White armies during the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 (and provided its fair share of heroes to the Russian-Japan war, World War I, and World War II).

The Angara River is the pride of Irkutsk. It is the only outlet of Lake Baikal, so coming out of the largest lake on Earth it is a fast flowing river that collects all the water of southern Siberia to convey to the Arctic Sea. Lake Baikal freezes over during winter, but the Angara flows so fast that it never freezes, providing year-round water to half of Siberia. You may wonder about my vast knowledge of Siberian geography. Truth is that I am cheating; I found a small lending “library” built around a public phone, and from it I borrowed an 8^th grade atlas of Russian geography. It is in Russian, of course, but a maps are maps and I know how to read one.

My walk took me through several parks and monuments to the shores of the Angara, where I found an interesting exhibition: A series of about 20 large displays, at eye level, where photographs of children waiting to be adopted are shown, as a public service to match them with the couples that are considering adoption as a way to build their families. Cute kids!

Being at the crossroads of all commerce between Asia and Europe, the city was the hub of all religions, and includes churches, mosques, temples and synagogues of every imaginable denomination. Most of them were abandoned during the Soviet era, but after Perestroika several of them have been restored to their former glory. I was particularly impressed by the Orthodox Cathedral, the inner walls of which are, in very Orthodox manner, covered by sacred scenes that occupy every available square centimeter.

I got a little lost because I saw and followed a sign pointing to the monument of Admiral Alexander Koltschak, a name I recognized as that of a well-known Polar explorer and oceanographer, who in 1900-1902 was a member of the Russian Polar Expedition. He wrote a treatise on Polar ice and polynyas, which for years was held as the most authoritative word on the subject. I am sorry to say that after a mile wandering through the inner city I gave up, only to find out that I was a bit lost. Perfect, there is noting I like more than an orienteering challenge!

On my way back, I went through the main shopping area of the city (barely waking up at 8 am). There I found a cool “open” sculpture to honor movie director Leonid Gaidai; although unbeknownst to me, this is a famous Russian director, and in this “open” sculpture you get to walk through a scene of one of its most famous movies, where the Russian Three Stooges are trying to stop a moving car, while the director is poised at the edge of his chair, ready to send the famous movie dog into the scene, with a life dynamite stick in his mouth. I also walked past the statue of Lenin and Maxim Gorky, after which I finally recognized a landmark and in five minutes was back at home, precisely at the time that Christine and Lara were getting there back from the airport. My poor Chrissy had missed her connection in Moscow due to delays at the immigration and customs control, and was arriving four hours late.

An hour later we got together for breakfast at the house of Madam Galina, who made some delicious crepes (Blinzes) for us, met some additional members of the group, and planned to get together for a city walk in the early afternoon. Afterward most everybody went back to bed, while I went out for a second walk, to visit the Ethnographic Museum and the river front along the Yuri Gagarin Boulevard (where I found a bust of the famous, smiling Russian astronaut).

We did meet later that day and exchanged names (but I don’t remember most of them). There will be 11 members to our party, including Lara, with varied ages and interests. Raymond wants to collect scenes for a documentary, so he had his movie camera out; I hope he will prove to be a good historian. After the planning we were offered a city tour by a nice Russian lady who is a German teacher at one of the local schools. She was wonderfully patient and very generous with her knowledge of the city but, alas, we went over the same ground I had covered early that morning. At least I got to reinforce my knowledge of the geography of this handsome city.

Siberia 2018 - Days 1 to 3. A hellacious trip between Monterrey and Irkutsk

So, what happened with “The End”? Ah, that was the end of my trip through Latin America, whereas this is the beginning of my trip to Siberia. Not the same thing, you know.

In my original plan I was going to get back to California from Monterrey, Mexico, but my friend Chrissy invited me on a tour of inspection of the watershed of Lake Baikal, and since that is the largest body of fresh water in the world, and I am teaching Development and Management of Water Resources this semester, I figured this was one opportunity I could not let go by.

Where is Lake Baikal? Close to the border between Russia and Mongolia, due north of Ulaan Bataar. Irkutsk is one of the largest cities in Siberia, and sits a few kilometers west of the northwest end of the lake. It is, of course, impossibly far from Monterrey, Mexico, so I need to undertake a hellacious trip there. First I will take a 3-hour trip to Atlanta (my friend Dallas tells me that souls headed for Hell need to go through Atlanta International), where I will sit for 7 hours before the next stage. From Atlanta I am taking a 15-hour flight to Seoul, where I have a 12-hour layover. Finally, I will take a 4-hour flight to Irkutsk. I am leaving at noon on August 11 from Monterrey, and will arrive in Irkutsk in the evening of August 13. How is that for a long flight!

I have little recollection of what it was that I did in Atlanta, outside of roaming the shops, and browsing through books I never buy. Wait … that is not true. I did buy a Russian phrasebook, just so that I have basic knowledge of hello, please, and thank you. Russian is a language with declinations, and with about six cases (a bit like Latin), so the order of the words or the pervasive use of pronouns is not as important as it is in English (Spanish is in between, and in many instances the case is clearly understood by the form of the verb). Oh, yes, I also had dinner at Panda Express.

I was facing the prospect of the 15-hour flight to Seoul with excitement and trepidation. On one hand, one can see up to 6 movies in that time span, but on the other you get stiff sitting for such a long time. I compromised by seeing 3.75 movies and snoozing (or eating airplane food, which is my absolute favorite).

I landed in Seoul at 3:30 am, which is way to early. I roamed the halls of the airport like an errant soul because normal people don’t come to the airport at 4 am. I did, however, figured out that I was in Terminal 2 and my connecting flight departed from Terminal 1, so I took the free bus and discovered that the terminals are heck’a far from each other (a good 20 minutes in the freeway). Good thing I figured that out while I had enough time.

At 6 am I presented myself in the desk that offers free tours to the city for transferring passengers. This is the best deal in the world, courtesy of the Incheon Airport. They collect a fee of US$ 10, that go to pay for your lunch in the city, and depending on how much time you have they offer 5-hour, 4-hour, and 2-hour tours. I took the 5-hour tour, which departed at 8 am for a one-and-a-half hour ride to Seoul. The highway skirts the shore of the Korean Sea (China calls it the East China Sea and has been freaking out the Koreans by building artificial islands and then claiming territorial rights all around them), and then jumped across the River Hangang and its estuary. Seoul, like San Francisco, is built along the shores of the estuary.

The goals were to visit the Gyeongbokung Palace (14^th century, from the time when Korea became an independent kingdom, even though still allied to the Chinese empire). The palace is very pretty and has been lovingly restored. It includes the public areas, where the parades and ceremonies took place (I actually got to see a changing of the guard with many fluttering pennants and sound of drums and cymbals), and a back portion where the king and his ministers worked, and even farther back the royal residence with lovely gardens and water bodies.

The only issue with our visit to the palace is that most of us had already been in a plane for 15 hours, and running around for an hour under pretty warm weather added to the rather ripe odor in the bus.

The second and final stop was in downtown, where we had the chance to walk along a narrow street lined by shops that catered to tourists and restaurants. Our guide herded s to one of these restaurants, where I had vegetarian bibimbap (basically a few mounds of shredded veggies to which you can add hot sauce and rice), which is pretty standard lunch fare here in Korea. It was OK but not great; like so many other vegetarian dishes it would benefit from a quarter pound of grilled beef. I ate as fast as possible, because I wanted to use my time looking at the city, not eating. It was a nice walk, but personally I would have liked to see more of the city. On my way back I am going to strike on my own and do serious tourism!

On the way back we caught the low tide, and I was shocked by the extent to which the floor of the estuary had been drained. I will have to use this as an example of extreme tidal range when I teach Physical Oceanography this semester.

By the time I got to the airport I was hot and bothered, and had to cool my heels in the departure level for an hour before I could get my boarding pass and document my luggage. Once I had the boarding pass I made a bee line for the departure gates, planning on taking advantage of a special accommodation that very few travelers have heard off: The fabulous people of the Incheon Airport put at your disposition a free shower service. For 30 minutes you are the lord of a well-appointed bathroom for your personal ablutions pleasure. Experienced travelers on the know, like yours truly, take care to do the Trans-Pacific flight wearing an old shirt, underware, and socks, and carrying a fresh set in the backpack. Thanks to this foresight, a half hour later I emerged from the bathroom like Venus emerging from her shell (except that I had a bit more pudor and was wearing a clean shirt), born anew after my luxurious shower. The old smelly clothes were left behind in the trash can.

Following the teachings of my friend Gustav, I stopped by the duty free to buy my allowed liter of cheap whisky. I had not prepared myself, however, for the snobbishness that the Asian upper crust has developed for whiskey, for which they are willing topay absurdly exorbitant prices. Worst are the unpronounceable Scottish whiskeys, but even the American ones get bumped in price thousands of yens,or wons simply by having a different color (e.g., Johnny Walker Green) or by being special editions (e.g., Jack Daniels Honey). The duty-free sales women are particularly keen on selling the high-price products, and look down their noses to us schmucks that go for $20 Jim Beam (some Korean women are particularly fair, wear black dresses to appear cadaveric, and wear stiletto heels, for a general aspect of attack bitches, an image no doubt developed to deal with cheap customers like me). Ha, they probably have never enjoyed the experience of chucking down Kessler direct from the plastic bottle around a campfire!

The flight down to Irkutsk went just fine, even if a bit stuffy, and as promised we landed at 8 pm. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the migration and customs processes went superfast. The Russians finally figured out that all the necessary information is printed in the passport and the visa, so there is no need to subject the incoming tourists to a KGB-style interrogation. My luggage was one the last to come out, so by the time I came into the tiny arrivals hall the crowd had thinned considerably. There were four people standing there, holding signs in Korean, but there was no one holding the sign for Knut-Reisen. I looked around for a while, and even asked the information desk. Nothing. I couldn’t find the money exchange counter either, so with some trepidation I used the ATM to pull out 20,000 rubles (approximately US$ 300). I went back to the hall and found null comma nichts. It looked like I had been left to my own devices. OK, I went back to the first guy who had offered me a taxi, showed him the address of the place we were going to stay, and five minutes later we were barreling at high speed through the streets of Irkutsk.

Irkutsk is a handsome city of about 700,000 inhabitants, and in the summer is filled with green trees and parks, people walking in the dusk, and lively advertising (I am told that come September the snow will start and the aspect of the city will be much closer with what most of us associate with the word Siberia). We finally arrived at my destination, a three story house that must have been built 500 years ago, with that aspect of decay that was familiar to me from visiting the Russian neighborhoods in Riga. It was a peasant house transplanted to the center of the city. It took me a while to find the entrance, and once there I had to wait by the door for a good few minutes until this woman came in from the outside. This was Mrs. Galina, who looked to me in astonishment, and in Russian-accented German asked me how had I come from the airport. I explained I had taken a taxi. “But where is Lara?” Not knowing who Lara was I simply shrugged my shoulders. “I know about you”, she said, “You are staying at another house, and later you are getting a woman.” At this alarming statement I assured her that I might be staying at another house, but I was most definitely not getting a woman! What the hell is going on? Is this nice-looking woman a heartless human trafficker—whom I shall refer to hereafter as Madam Galina, Queen of the Russian underworld—making a sordid attempt to foist on me a helpless female refugee? Madam Galina shook her head and went inside to make a phone call to Lara, and five minutes later I was speaking to her and clarifying that yes, I was the gentleman expected to arrive this evening; no, I had not seen the Knut-Reisen people at the airport; and yes, I knew Christine Kobberger and I was looking forward to seeing her later in the evening. Whew, what glorious misunderstandings one can get into in this travel business.

A few minutes later Lara came to collect me. She is our liaison here in Russia, and clearly she is going to become our key trouble-shooter. Lara is German, lives in Berlin, is married to a Russian man, and studies East European Culture at the university. Needless to say, she is perfectly fluent in German, Russian, and English. I am the first one to arrive, so we made our acquaintance over a late dinner of raw Lake Baikal fish, mashed potatoes, and sliced tomatoes and cucumbers (rats, I forgot to bring the Habanero sauce I packed for this trip) at a pleasant open-air bistro a few blocks from our home stay. I am going to like it here 😊