Day 7 The day we went on a boat trip and our boat broke

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This time we decided to get up at 8 a.m. and it worked - we made it to the boat. There were actually two boats, and determined to go on a boat trip I dragged Mike onto the first one, looking triumphant as the boat left the pier and the people who didn't make it onto the first boat. Little did I know that I just pushed and shoved our way onto a doomed boat. Well, not quite so dramatic, but you'll see what I mean.

We sailed across Baikal to the mainland, where we went on a short hike to a spring and then stopped for lunch. We had some pozy - famous Buryat dumplings, filled with minced meat, onions and garlic.

Our last stop was a small island with a small Buddhist stupa - a dome-like structure containing Buddhist relics. Soon, we found ourselves taking our shoes off and walking around the stupa clockwise three times and wondering if it was a real ritual, or something local guides made up to amuse the gullible tourists - just like that thing where they have groups of tourists build pyramids out of flat rocks the likes of which were dotting the hill we were on.



After a while, we were served lunch on the boat - bowl of ukha, Russian fish soup and plates of salad. Then it was time to leave, except the boat had other ideas. It decided to break down. Another boat (the boat that got all those people who didn't get the first boat) tried to tug us, but for some reason it was working, so it left, leaving us behind. The captain radioed the port and told us another boat would be coming to pick us up. Meanwhile, they served us tea and biscuits and even though we had just had lunch, everyone was suddenly ravenous, possibly anticipating a night spent on a basically desert island. I was quietly wondering if any of those Buddhist relics might include non-perishable food items.



Finally, another boat came and carried us back to the village. Between the waiting and the two-hour trip, it was dark by the time we got to the village. We bought some food and then stumbled our way through the dark forest, wishing we had our headlamps and wondering how our tent fared being left alone all day. Once at the campsite, we made a fire, grilled some horse sausage (the only kind they had at the village shop), heated up a can of beans, tore off chunks of fresh bread and had one of the best dinners we'd ever had!

P.S. As we were getting ready for the trip, we decided to look up if it was safe to heat up cans of food using a fire. We found Yahoo answers page with the same question and it had only one answer: "Of course it safe. I mean, hobos do it all the time!"

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