Day 28: Lake Baikal back to Irkutsk

Friday, October 14, 2016

Today was not so exciting. Got a van ride back to Irkutsk, the same route we came two days ago. This time there was no one in the van who spoke English because Diego had returned a day earlier. The driver even stopped at the same midpoint cafe, which I guess all the vans do. I got in touch with Diego when I arrived in Irkutsk and we made a plan to meet at 8:30 p.m. at the train station. His night train was leaving at 10 p.m. towards the east. He helped me buy my ticket westward for the next day.

I decided to skip Krasnojarsk and go straight to Novosibirsk, even though it meant a 30-hour train ride. I'm mostly interested in Kazan and Vladimir, two historic cities with populations around 300,000. And Krashnojarsk has 1 million population. I'm trying to beat the cold weather, and stick to my 80-day goal. And of course I'm excited to visit Moscow and St. Petersburg, despite being the two largest cities in Russia.

The Trans-Siberian Railway Map. I started with the Trans-Mongolian Railway, which connects with the Trans-Sib at Utan-Ude. My route goes from Irkutsk--Novosibirsk--Kazan--Vladimir--Moscow--St. Petersburg.

My last breakfast at Olga's. A sweet oatmeal, and pancakes (more like crepes) with sweetened condensed milk.

That's Olga and her adorable grandson. He is such a character. The other woman is probably Olga's sister, but none of them spoke much English, so I don't know.

Olga's grandson wants the cell phone of a French guest.

Using his charm to get what he wants.

Success! Of course he cried when he had to give it back.

Our driver was hoping to pick up more passengers at Nikita's Guesthouse, but most of them piled into this bigger van. Only three Chinese tourists joined us. He spent quite a bit of time wandering around the village looking for more passengers before finally taking off.

No one could tell me why we had to wait so long for the ferries to load. 

We entertained ourselves by skipping stones on the water. The Chinese women seemed like they had never tried it before and had little if any success.

Our driver's girlfriend.

I kept seeing this Chinese woman in her beautiful coat the day before around the island. So I asked if I could get a photo of her jacket. It reminded me of the textiles in Tarabuco, Bolivia.

Finally we were on our way. The French couple from Olga's was in the same van as me, but we weren't sitting near each other, so I got to ride in silence.

We stopped at a cafe midway to Irkutsk. I got a beet salad with a big glop of sour cream.

The Irkutsk train station where I said goodbye to my friend Diego.