Sorry for the delay in this post. Life became busy all of a sudden due to....a new job! *high fives* More on that when the Trans-Siberian travel stories are properly recorded.
To pick up where I left off...
Our visas were registered and off to Lake Baikal we went. Forty-five minutes in a microbus (aka mini van) took us to Listvyanka, a ghost town on the lake's snowy edge. To be fair, in the summer time this village is probably hoppin' with tourists but in December it's spookishly quiet. We spotted, off the one street that ran through town, what looked like a guesthouse. The lights were all turned off, we nervously shouted "Hello!" across the lobby, and just when we were about to leave an old woman greeted us from the shadows in Russian. Ah! She was as surprised as we were since I'm sure we were probably her first guests in months. An older, shirtless man emerged a few minutes later upon hearing all the English/Russian/body language commotion involved in communicating we wanted a room. We worked things out but without knowing Russian it was hard to tell if they were excited or bothered by our presence.
We threw down our bags then decided to check out the market to find some food. It was empty beside a few brave souls trying to sell us their unappetizing dried fish varieties or overpriced traditional Russian trinkets. Hmm, no thanks. I'm sure they were all thinking, "What are these crazy English-speaking tourists doing here in the dead of winter?" Getting desperate and cold, we finally found a little shop selling meat, cheese and bread. That plus some black tea from our guesthouse lady tasted like a million bucks.
We woke up excited to see and hike around the glorious Lake Baikal. Glorious because it's home to 1/5 of the world's fresh water. Plus it's the world's oldest and deepest lake. Pretty good stats, eh? But then we looked out the window to see snow violently swirling around and lost some of our excitement......MEGA BURRRRR! We bundled up with all the layers we could but it didn't seem to matter. BURRRRR! I don't know the official temperature that day but it was officially the coldest I've ever felt and hopefully ever will feel. It was somewhere around -1,000 Celsius (in my head). Needless to say, the walk along the lake was brief and the hiking was cancelled. That left the seal museum and the Lake Baikal museum as options. Seal museum! Closed. Lake Baikal museum! Expensive, all in Russian but heated and with a small aquarium housing three adorable Baikal seals. A small win amongst a day of losses.
Matt paid too much for the Baikal's famous smoked omul while I paid too much for a mushroom and chicken "salad" consisting of just mushrooms and chicken doused in mayo. 'Twas the straw the broke the camel's back. Now I can laugh thinking about that day but I was surely not laughing at the time. Good riddance,Listvyanka! If we meet again, it'd better be summertime.
Back to Irkutsk for one final night with our dear couchsurfing host, Artur before our long ride to Moscow.
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