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!
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