Lake Baikal and Listvyanka

We've just arrived back from Lake Baikal and are killing some time before our train ride to Mongolia. We leave at 9pm and get there a day and a half from now. Our time in Russia is almost over!

Lake Baikal turned out to be a lot of fun. We took the bus to Listvyanka with some other nice people from our hostel. We all ended up staying in different accomodations, but we were really happy with ours. We got our own little log cabin with a wood burning stove and lake view. Paul was hoping to do something adventurous, but all activities were off for the shoulder season so we enjoyed the town our first day there. There was a nice market where we bought some smoked omul, a trout-like fish famous in the region. Paul found the lake to be reminiscent of an ocean because it's so big and it really did give that feel. I found it a lot like one of Ontario's big lakes where you can't see to the other side. It had sand and rocks very much like Lake Erie. Very pleasant, but quite sedate.

Yesterday, however, we really had fun! We woke up really late and walked to town, ate breakfast and came back to our "camp". It was set up as a main cabin where the owners live and several cute tourist cabins. We hadn't met the owner yet and his sister came and asked us is we wanted our breakfast (at 2pm). I've never been one to turn down a 2nd free breakfast, so we accepted a great meal of scrambled eggs (we've rarely had eggs for breakfast in Russia), vegetables, pineapple and cake. The owner (Andrei) took a liking to us and told us he was taking us to the woods in 20 minutes. We expected a nature walk, but instead his friend (Dima) took his Russian jeep off-roading. Very fun! First stop - a giant ant hill. Apparently, brave Russian men either lay down (Andrei) in or put their hands on (Dima) the ant hill and the ants nip at you with an effect like acupuncture (this was communicated mostly through miming). Paul went for the hand-on-anthill option and was deemed an "extreme Russian man". Then we were off in the Jeep again. We stopped so Andrei could try to shoot some birds, but he missed. Then we got out to be taught the Russian names of various trees and to look for animal tracks. Animal tracks were identified and their names communicated through animal impersonations done by us and our new friends. Last stop was to forrage through the bush with Tanya (Dima's wife) instructing us to look for plants that smelled like garlic and had red stems. I think we would call these ramps. Paul and I weren't very good at it, but we got a few. On the way home they stopped at the church to show us around and pray before stopping at the convenience store for vodka.

When we got back to the camp, we weren't sure if we were supposed to come inside and eat the ramps (a lot of miming had been done to show how good they would be with vodka) or if they were done with us. We loitered outside for quite a while on a big wooden swing hoping for an invite. Eventually Paul went to the door on the pretense of asking an unrelated question and we were finally invited in. They had mixed the ramps with sour cream and put the mixture on heavy rye bread. The result was a better version of the Canadian favourite of spinach dip in pumpernickel bread bowl. Very tasty. We had asked about jumping in the lake which they told us we'd be crazy to do unless we drank some vodka first and went in the sauna after. We opted to go for it! Was it ever cold! As I think I've mentioned, in the north the lake is still too frozen to pass, so it probably wasn't much warmer than zero Celcius. Then we used the sauna which was heated with wood and came complete with pine branches with which to beat each other (again explained through miming). It is supposed to be therapeutic. By the time we returned from all this activity, Andrei had gone to bed. Dima and Tanya however were just getting started. They put on the Russian disco tunes and we danced the night away. We finally brought things to a halt when some raw omul was placed on bread and given to me. (I had already done my best to eat a cooked omul fish cake earlier and could handle no more.) We've just tried to e-mail Dima and Tanya but unfortunately the address didn't work. We have promised them photos from our fun day together. They were extremely nice and did a great job of entertaining us for about 8 hours with almost no English.