Advertisement
Published: August 7th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Facts about Lake Baikal: Lake Baikal is in southern Siberia and is also known as the "Blue Eye of Siberia". It contains more water than all of the North American Great Lakes combined. At 1,642 meters (5,390 ft), Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world and the largest freshwater lake in the world by volume. Lake Baikal was formed as an ancient rift valley, having the typical long crescent shape with a surface area of (31,722 km2/12,248 sq mi), less than that of Lake Superior or Lake Victoria.
Today we were heading to Olkhon Island, 500km from Irkutsk in Lake Baikal. We had heard great reviews of this island so were excited to go. First we had to figure out how to get there, after discovering we couldn't get there from Listvyanaka by boat we ended up having to go back to Irkutsk to get a bus from there.
So after 7 hours and a very bumpy ride (the main road on the island is just a dust/rock/sand track) we finally made it to our home for the next 3 nights. Nikitas Guest House 800r each for the night including food - 3 times a day, so
for 16 of the queens’ money we were fed, watered and sheltered!!!! Bargain hey!!!!
We immediately loved this place, the atmosphere was amazing, so peaceful and chilled. We were shown our room and directed to the toilets (long drops) and sinks, I think from the look on our faces that he didn't mention showers; he quickly told us we would find them back at the main guesthouse as we were about 100m away in a newly built wooden load of rooms in someone’s back garden. Phew!!! So we dumped our bags and headed out to buy some beers in time to watch the sunset over Lake Baikal. The sunset was amazing, totally beautiful.
We had a nice long lie in the next morning before heading out for a yummy breakfast of fried eggs and pancakes and then deciding to hire bikes to explore a bit of the island.
On our way down the road we passed the Irish lads from Yekaterinburg so had a quick chat to them before heading off for what we were expecting to be a nice leisurely bike ride.
It started off as we expected, rather well, but we soon started to
think it was a very bad idea hiring bikes as the terrain turned into very steep hills with plenty of sand on the paths, it was proving difficult to get any momentum. But through all the sweat, blood and nearly tears we were rewarded with the most amazing views. We made it back 5 hours later only falling off once each, G in 'slowmo' into a dried cow pat and T leap frogging off his bike and elbow dropping a pile of sand.
The next day we had booked ourselves onto a trip to the North of the Island which was highly recommended by the Irish lads Dave and Steve, they didn't let us down, after off-roading for 3 hours we were once again rewarded with the most spectacular views. The trip only cost us 10 quid each, the off roading part was priceless; people pay 50 quid for this at home. The off roading couldn't be helped because this was actually the main road to the north. Nothing like the A1 back at home!!!!
At lunch time our driver cooked up a mean fish stew for lunch before taking us back home via even more amazing views.
When we got back we had a walk along the coast deciding not to have a swim considering the water here is FREEZING 15 degrees we believe. Mete would have loved it.
We bumped into another lad from our Hostel in Yekaterinburg called Ben so after dinner we went to a bar with him and his mate Mark for beers. After many beers and an attempt to find the illusive club the other side of the ridge in pitch blackness we decided to call it a night and stumbled home marvelling at how bright the stars were.
Olkhon Island is heaven, we highly recommend it to anyone who can deal with long drops, it’s our favourite place so far.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.123s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 15; qc: 64; dbt: 0.0748s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb