Beach holiday in Siberia - rantaloma Siperiassa

Monday was a really crappy day. I found out that I wasn't addimited to major in social work... There still are the options two and three...Queing (how on earth do you spell that?) and minoring in it next year.

Anyway, seems like Baboushkas prayers helped because Dana and the Italians found two guys who wanted to join us to the Baikal lake: Jesus and Nicolas! It was sooo funny :) So after a lot of struggle we got to the bus station and made and agreement with a guy that he will take us to Olkhon island all the way to the town Kruzhir. It was 4000 RUB which means about 570 RUB/person. (35 RUB is 1 e if anyone is intrested)
So we smushed in our luggage and got in to the truck. Nicolas is French and Jesus Spanish. They both study informatics in Stockholm, but they're Swedish was too poor to have a real conversation in Swedish. They had a plastic flamingo with them which they carry in pieces and put it together when they stop. They have a travelblog which is transsiberianflamingo.info :)

We started the journey at 6pm. and we finally arrived at the ferry harbour at 10 pm. The way there was awfull...We saw a terrible traffic accidents. There were two bodies lying aside the road. Other one was wrapped in a red cloth, blood maybe and the other was a guy lying with an open shirt extremely pale. We all felt horrible and were thankfull that our driver didn't drive too fast.
The road was bumby and we arrived to the car queue last. Me and Tuula went swimming naked in the Baikal's. Finally! It was so nice to swim in the sun set and enjoy the pure water. I crawled into the sleeping bag and we listened to the driver's music which was a medley from the 80's with Boney M's Rasputin. It was so cool to hear this sonf in Russia ;)
The ferry was overcrowded and it was about centimetres that everyone could squeeze in. Dana had to go in and pay somekind of fee of entering the national park. She was so fucked up with Russian authorities that day so she said: Oh, I love your country so much! The lady burst into laughter...
Along the bumby road we got finally to the camping place at 1am. It was a windy hill, but it was too dark to look for a better place to camp in.

In the morning we found out that the view was spectacular and really amazing. It was a cliff with a lakeview. The others wanted to move to another camping place.... I tried but after three sleepless nights I just burst into tears and threw my backpack on the beach. I took a swim, read the Chinese policier in French that I got from the train and washed my hair - first time in days!!! Jesus and Tuula finally helped me with the luggage.

The camping place reminded me off Faboda with it's sandy beaches and pine&spruce trees. Anyone who comes from Pietarsaari knows what I mean :) We didn't really do anything that day...Just sleeping.
I swam in the pure lake water. Believe it or not, it's drinkable!!

The day was bad and Jesus and Nicolas tent crashed so we had to take the boys into our tents. Jesus was with me, Tuula and Maurizio and Nicolas with Dana&Roby. In the evening Nicolas and Roby sang a No-rain song to prevent the rain fall to repeate in the night. Nicolas had bought a guitar from St.Petersburg...it was very shitty but the blues sounded great. The Spanish-French boys and the flamingo left us on Wednesday.

I left to Kruzhir with Dana and we bought some endemic salmon, omuls for the evening and booked a sauna. Maurizio was brave enough to join us to the sauna in the evening while Roby stayed at the camp - too shy and also because of his slight claustrofobia.
The sauna was heated by wood and the stove was a bit different from the Finnish, the stones were in the middle and the window was inwards. Of course there was no running water, but the buckets were so romantic and nice that we didn't really care. It was so awesome to get cleaned properly... The back yard was really Siberian with all trucks, messy and a lot of wooden houses. After the sauna a beer tasted SO good.
Tuula had a chat with too old locals with her almost inexistant Russian skills. I liked the village a lot... Seems like it would belong to another century since there are cows walking on the street, houses are made of wood and the roads are bumby and dusty. Even though Olkhon Island is rather touristic it still remaines and unspoiled village.

There were a lot of people camping on the shores. We actually didn't
do much. Suprisingly we found the four Russianswho were in the same wagon in the train... I felt like Olkhon island was the Goa of Siberia.

So four days drifted by sleeping, swimming, cooking, eating omuls and drinking beer and vodka and chatting. The last night we had a festive meal and vodka.

This morning me and Tuula left the camp. We felt like being on another century when the cows walked on the dusty street and the cocks were singing. The martrushka(minivan)driver packed the stuff on the roof of the van. 200km in a stuffed minivan and being slightly tired. Luckily, the van arrived close to a supermarket and I managed to buy a head lamp with my harasoo, spasiba, adin, dva, dri Russian.

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