Listvyanka, village on Lake Baikal
Trip Start
Nov 21, 2007
1
100
158
Trip End
Oct 01, 2008
Listvyanka,
Siberia,
Russian Federation
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
We stayed at a great little guesthouse which fed us WONDERFUL breakfasts. The first day we had fried bread with sour cream and strawberry preserves. The second day, we had pancakes with cheese and preserves. We loved it! The down side to the guest house was the available bathrooms. You had to wait your turn but it was not too bad over all, just makes it feel more "homey."
We went on two different walks both days we were there. The first day was to the lookout point which was just a nice stroll
Look at Lake Baikal
. The second day was a longer hike with Sasha (our local guide.) Shasha shared his knowledge of the forrest and area. He even let us know he loved wild garlic and vodka (you should have seen the face he made when he described how much he like it). We had a lovely lunch on the beach of instant mashed potatoes, sausage, cucumbers, tomatoes, yummy cookies, chocolate, cheese, another kind of sausage, bread and tea. It was awesome!We also visited the Lake Baikal museum where we learned about the "world's largest lake" by volume (20% of the world's fresh water!!). They had a small aquarium that was neat to see some of the wild life that lives in the water. The two Baikal seals were our favorite because they were so playful, fat and cute. Their faces looked like cats, sort of?
One of the coolest experience was the sauna! The guesthouse we stayed in had a wonderful sauna where we sat and sweated for a few minutes. Then, once we got hot enough, we took off to jump into Lake Baikal. The temperature was about 14 C...COLD. Jana made noises that scared some of the locals as she tried to "ease" her way in...Latyon just jumped in. Both ways were VERY COLD. We went back to the sauna to warm up and ended up "bathing" there. We soaped up and used defoliators like there was no tomorrow
our homey guest house
. It was the best "sponge bath" we had had in a while. What a crazy experience and something totally different than what we normally do!We met some great Australians, Drew and Sal, who were on their way home from living in Scotland for 2.5 years. They were great! They joined us for the hike on the second day and came over to our guest house for some beers. When we went to buy beers, the shop had closed its door so you had order through a window. It was a very fun experience to use hand signals to order!
Random:
Ranga - FAKE red heads are everywhere.
Menus in English - there were never enough menus at the restaurants in the village. In fact, most only had a few so all 15 of us would have to share two menus. Really, is it that hard to make a few more copies?
Food - "Russian style" Omul from Lake Baikal and "Siberian style" beef (that was a bit chewy.) They were basically the same.
Russian = sour cream, onions, mushrooms and crispy baked cheese on top. This one was baked in foil like a little casserole.
Siberian = sour cream, more onions and pepper and yummy crispy baked cheese on top. This one was more of baked stand alone dish.
