Siberia - Day 6

I love the sound of rain, it's like a lullaby that makes me sleep like a baby.

If I could I would have reinforced my swollen ankle with steel but I had to make do with tape, bandages, ankle support and thick socks. My knee on the other hand decided to grow overnight and had to be covered with a generous amount of sports gel. The day reminded me of a typical English summer day, dreary and wet. We left camp fully prepared for a rainy day and we were not wrong. The mini streams from the day before grew threefold overnight. True to form, 10 minutes into our descent, I managed to step into one of these 'little streams', getting totally soaked. I just knew it would be a very squishy squashy day. I have to be honest, I will never understand the magic of mud running ..... I guess if you do it at home you will have access to a washing machine at the end of the day, here it was a different matter, a VERY different matter.

Walking downhill was like getting expert skating lessons from a donkey. Within the hour I was a black belt at mud sliding. Obviously, my boots were a bit muddy but for the life of me I have no idea how I managed to get my jacket and my trousers muddy as high up as my butt, without ever falling, sitting or leaning against anything. Will leave this with Mulder and Scully to figure out.

After an hour or so I simply forgot what it was like to be dry and/or warm, but hey-ho that's trekking for you. These kinds of days are always the best icebreakers at parties :). I thought it will be a wet and boring day, I was right on the first but very wrong on the second. Our first little incident happened when we had to cross a small 'puddle'. It must have been at least 3 meters wide and 5 meters in length, and as far as we could see there was no way around it.

The stones sticking out were very strategically placed by some joker in heaven. They were small, sharp and a good meter apart; just imagine how boring it would have been if we could have just stepped on them, but NOPE it wasn't meant to be. I took the first step and then stopped dead; My mind simply froze and I had no clue where the heck to go from there. Katya, my lovely angel, passed me by as if she had wings, and lent me a hand so I could hop to safety. HUH, will admit my heart was in my throat and I did say a few prayers in the milliseconds it took me to jump. Christoph was a champ, or a chimp in this case, as he crossed quicker than I could blink. Then came Svetlana. She successfully navigated the first four stones but was stuck with the last two. Katya and I tried to help with our walking sticks but it wasn't meant to be. The first stone was done with the precision of a heart surgeon however the second was missed by a hairline and Svetlana went down. Hard. The water wasn't deep but going sideways for even a few seconds was not good for anything below the belt. We fished her out quickly but the damage was done. And as good friends would do anywhere in the world, we all started laughing like lunatics. If you can't see the funny side of this then you need to fill your cup with some 'funny' stuff. She quickly changed and, bless her heart, Katya offered up her spare trousers without being asked. By the time we got to our first break spot, we were almost in tears from laughter. I personally thanked Svetlana for making my day.

After that it was mainly downhill, with my two best friends, Johnny Walker and Jack (my walking sticks) we had a hell of a time. Due to the rain, I didn't want to use my camera and as we crossed almost the same path going to the lake I thought everything would have been recorded 6 ways to Sunday. Wrong again; the rain does funny things to the scenery, while on a lovely day, everything is nice and shiny on a rainy day it's more dramatic. The clouds descended and covered some of the mountains, the lakes were much larger and streams managed to grow in size exactly where you didn't want them. I made a comment to Christoph that I was sort of happy with the rainy day as we had a chance to use all the gear we'd taken with us. I'm now 50% sure I meant it, the other 50% will be asking for a professional consult immediately after my return.

Our lunch break was the shortest in history. We removed our backpacks, smarty as I am, I also removed my boots and my socks, rain trousers, rain jacket and even my top (one of them). I very kindly offered my sleeping pad to everyone to sit on for lunch. It only took 5 minutes for the lovely downpour to soak us to the skin. Imagine a cartoon, where the main character multitasks like an octopus or like a squirrel on caffeine: I'm almost sure I put both of my very wet socks inside out, I literally jammed my feet into the boots, my fork into my pocket and my rain jacket almost upside down but I got ready. At this point everything I had on was wet, either from sweat or the rain, so even going for a swim wouldn't have made a difference. Accepting that made everything much easier. Crossing or occasionally walking in streams or sliding through very cool-looking and interesting-smelling mud was a pleasure. I kept wondering if I could adopt my two best buddies, aka Johnny and Jack, and bring them back to the country so they can watch over me on my wall for eternity. .... just a passing thought which lasted no more than 2 hours. And before you ask, YES, I'm almost sure I wasn't delirious.

We arrived at our camp just after 4 pm, which was one of our quickest treks, only having walked 10 km. It was the first time that we had actual neighbours (a lovely couple) where even the campfire was shared. However, this was the least of our problems, getting out of our very wet clothes seemed to be the first. I was considering having a quick swim but the temperature, the speed of the river and my mental state, aka exhaustion/hunger decided the matter for me. After a very quick wash, we hung everything to dry and then we started the very important process of cooking/eating.

Our 'Sala', aka 'szalonna' in Hungarian or 'raw bacon' in English, was pronounced slightly dodgy so we made kebabs and roasted them on the fire. My Dear good, nothing on this planet tasted as salty as these beauties. I managed 4 pieces before handling the whole thing to the others. WOW, I was very worried that I might have to drink directly from the river in the middle of the night, luckily I managed to resist. While waiting for the food to cook someone mentioned that they brought 10 shorts but only 2 socks. I thought I will pass out from laughter, not sure what it was, too much salt, too much sugar or plain exhaustion, but I found this information extremely funny.

While waiting for dinner we all sat around the campfire trying to dry our shoes and socks. To ensure they didn't join the kebab family and roast, I came up with an ingenious idea. I tied the shoes together at the back, attached them to a stick and slowly moved them closer and closer to the fire. What was first a small idea, became this massive enterprise within seconds. Our German engineers helped out by first carving a stick with a V at the end and then making a tripod to eliminate the human factor. This may have been the first step to a new era.

This became a Mecca for socks within seconds and everyone started adding to the collection. It was a fantastic feat of engineering and absolutely hilarious.

All my clothes smelled like smoked bacon by the end of the day but at least they were dry. As we knew the day ahead would be another long one we all headed off to be quite early. As Christoph very kindly put it, this was an "asshole of a day" but we had some great laughs and loved every second of it.