I was scrap booking the other day and came across some pictures of Altai, the mountainous region in eastern Siberia. People refer to Altai as if it were this magical place that only a few can get to. There is what's known as Altai Kudi, which is the Spirit or God of the Mountains and even western travelers refer to this. I personally didn't feel any such thing, I just like the name Altai, it's has a very romantic sound to it. Last year Gabi (my dear friend from England) and I were offered a trip to Altai for the low price of 4000 rubles, which is about $200. Four days of hiking, repelling and caving, along with banya, and endless amounts of medovhuka (fermented honey alcohol). We would have been crazy to turn down such an amazing offer, so we jumped at the chance. Talk about the ultimate birthday day trip.
Before we could go, obviously we needed some training if we were going to on this amazing adventure. Neither one of us had extensive experience in repelling or climbing for that matter, so we found ourselves with our instructor, Alexander or Sasha for short, in an abandoned hospital in a forested area. Despite the graffiti, the urine smells coupled with the stale beer smells; it was a great place to practice climbing, knot tying and repelling. The last time I had ever repelled I was at Outdoor Ed when I was about 12, and while it looks easy, which it is, but first you have to let of your fear. In my head I'd be a natural pro and scale the wall in 30 seconds flat because we were jumping from the third floor. Ha. No. It didn't happen like that. After Sasha got me all suited up I sat in the harness for about 5 minutes just trying to control my racing heart. Was I really going to do this? What if he didn't tie the rope right? My mother would surly kill me if I killed myself in Siberia in an abandoned hospital surrounded by a sea of vodka bottles. How cliché would that be? So there I sat, dangling from the third story window trying to get the 'what if's' out of my head, all the while Sasha is climbing and up and down trying to get me out of my crazy zone.
Him: Justina, pashli (пашли!)- let's go!
Me: Yes, yes, I'm coming. (when in fact I just clung to the rope)
Him: Pashli, vsyo budet horosho
Me: (rolling my eyes) Yeah, yeah, that's what everyone says just before everything hits the fan
Gabi: Don't worry dude, I went through the same thing last week. But I trust him.
And that's all it took. I took a deep breath and finally pushed off. The sensation of almost being in free fall is almost without words. Adrenaline and instincts just take over and can you believe that I was sad when I got to the bottom? I hugged Sasha when my feet finally touched the ground and I just wanted to do it again. Then it was Gabi's turn. She was much more graceful than I was, but she was one training session ahead of me.
So once or twice a week we were practice climbing and repelling. It was all we could talk about for days, and at nights we would watch YouTube videos on how to tie knots. How did the world ever exist before YouTube?
Fast forward to October 25 and that night we met up with our traveling companions: Nikoli, Sasha, Little Sasha (Sasha's son), Larissa, Gabi and me. First we had to be picked up from the metro station. We were led to a Neva car, which looks shoe box on wheels. After being tossed around in this car, we were transferred to a Waszik, which I kept calling a Wazo, so from here on out, it’s a Wazo. A Wazo is something that escaped from the Cold War and had an affair with the Scooby-Doo van; it’s green, rectangular (again, square) and although it’s far from attractive, it gets the job done. There were 7 adults and Sasha, the little boy. We also had Team Sasha: Sasha out guide, Sasha his son, Sasha one the drivers who we decided was an anti-social alcoholic and Sasha our host. There was Nickoil, Larissa and Gaby; Larissa is a red haired, chain smoking wild spirit who never shuts up and Nickoli is Sasha’s good friend who is also a master climber and adventurer. We were all piled on our backpacks and snuggled, prepared for the seven hour drive when Larissa pulled out a water bottle filled with cognac. Sweet. Now we’re talking. I was starving. I had fallen into the habit of only eating at 9am and then again at 11pm. Naturally I was starving. So I was happy when she pulled out the bottle and even more thrilled when she pulled out meat and bread.
Before we could go, obviously we needed some training if we were going to on this amazing adventure. Neither one of us had extensive experience in repelling or climbing for that matter, so we found ourselves with our instructor, Alexander or Sasha for short, in an abandoned hospital in a forested area. Despite the graffiti, the urine smells coupled with the stale beer smells; it was a great place to practice climbing, knot tying and repelling. The last time I had ever repelled I was at Outdoor Ed when I was about 12, and while it looks easy, which it is, but first you have to let of your fear. In my head I'd be a natural pro and scale the wall in 30 seconds flat because we were jumping from the third floor. Ha. No. It didn't happen like that. After Sasha got me all suited up I sat in the harness for about 5 minutes just trying to control my racing heart. Was I really going to do this? What if he didn't tie the rope right? My mother would surly kill me if I killed myself in Siberia in an abandoned hospital surrounded by a sea of vodka bottles. How cliché would that be? So there I sat, dangling from the third story window trying to get the 'what if's' out of my head, all the while Sasha is climbing and up and down trying to get me out of my crazy zone.
Him: Justina, pashli (пашли!)- let's go!
Me: Yes, yes, I'm coming. (when in fact I just clung to the rope)
Him: Pashli, vsyo budet horosho
Me: (rolling my eyes) Yeah, yeah, that's what everyone says just before everything hits the fan
Gabi: Don't worry dude, I went through the same thing last week. But I trust him.
And that's all it took. I took a deep breath and finally pushed off. The sensation of almost being in free fall is almost without words. Adrenaline and instincts just take over and can you believe that I was sad when I got to the bottom? I hugged Sasha when my feet finally touched the ground and I just wanted to do it again. Then it was Gabi's turn. She was much more graceful than I was, but she was one training session ahead of me.
So once or twice a week we were practice climbing and repelling. It was all we could talk about for days, and at nights we would watch YouTube videos on how to tie knots. How did the world ever exist before YouTube?
Fast forward to October 25 and that night we met up with our traveling companions: Nikoli, Sasha, Little Sasha (Sasha's son), Larissa, Gabi and me. First we had to be picked up from the metro station. We were led to a Neva car, which looks shoe box on wheels. After being tossed around in this car, we were transferred to a Waszik, which I kept calling a Wazo, so from here on out, it’s a Wazo. A Wazo is something that escaped from the Cold War and had an affair with the Scooby-Doo van; it’s green, rectangular (again, square) and although it’s far from attractive, it gets the job done. There were 7 adults and Sasha, the little boy. We also had Team Sasha: Sasha out guide, Sasha his son, Sasha one the drivers who we decided was an anti-social alcoholic and Sasha our host. There was Nickoil, Larissa and Gaby; Larissa is a red haired, chain smoking wild spirit who never shuts up and Nickoli is Sasha’s good friend who is also a master climber and adventurer. We were all piled on our backpacks and snuggled, prepared for the seven hour drive when Larissa pulled out a water bottle filled with cognac. Sweet. Now we’re talking. I was starving. I had fallen into the habit of only eating at 9am and then again at 11pm. Naturally I was starving. So I was happy when she pulled out the bottle and even more thrilled when she pulled out meat and bread.
As I was sitting in this questionable vehicle with people I
didn’t know, sharing a bottle of cognac out of a water bottle did I realize
that I was actually doing this. I had been so wrapped up in work, almost to the point that I despise most people- I almost forgot that I’m living in
the middle of Siberia! Not only that, in
the middle of the night I was headed to an unfamiliar place placing my
life in the hands of my roommate whom I’ve only known a year. This is amazing.
At some point we finally arrived in the region of
Chemal. After spending several hours
freezing and trying to get comfortable in less than ideal circumstances I
finally fell into an exhausted sleep, only to be startled awake by traveling up a
mountain with no roads. Being thrown around in what can now only be called a sardine can would become the norm for
us for the next 30 hours.
When we arrived at the ranch thing, honestly I can’t think
of what to call it, it was a house with no running water or electricity so I
want to call it a dacha. However, there were stables for the horses
and a banya and an outdoor gazebo for the summer, so perhaps it was a ranch mixed with a summer house mixed
with vintage living? Anyway, as I said,
no running water which meant an outhouse from hell. This also meant hygiene was going to be
sacrificed after two hours which would really start to wear on my nerves along
with everything else. After we met our
host, a man lovingly called…ready…Sasha!
To try and organize them all, this guy was called Sergeivich. He was what one would expect in such
conditions: chain smoking, quite thin, gold teeth and unclear and less than
perfect Russian. I had such a difficult
time understanding him. That coupled with the fact that I was emotionally and
physically exhausted. I collapsed on
what I thought was a bed only to find to my mounting dismay was a piece of
particle board with a questionable blanket on top. Perfect.
Of course it wouldn’t be real bed.
Why would it be?
I was allowed to sleep for about twenty minutes when I was
startled awake by Larissa’s voice shouting ‘davai! Krasata!’
Krasata would become our new
favorite word after this trip. Since
this was Gabi’s birthday trip, and since we were in the middle of nowhere in
Altai and since it was also nine in the morning…it seemed like the perfect time
to try some homemade samagon. My stomach
turned at the very idea of drinking moonshine so early in the morning. Plus, since all I had been doing is working, I
hadn't drunk alcohol in a while, plus, still lack of food. But who am I to be rude and turn my nose up
at tradition? So down the rabbit hole we
fell.
After the samigon I did feel a little better and before I
knew it there was soup and tomato sauce with garlic for bread- I was
happy. After the birthday shots,
Sergeivich pulled out medovkha, which
is basically fermented honey. I had
never had anything like it before, it was quite good, it didn’t taste like
honey or alcohol, but it had the same effect.
After two shots of that and some hot food I finally felt more like
myself (the friendly me, not the bitchy me who I was in danger of becoming) and wanted to
explore. I pulled on my awesomely ugly
yet surprisingly boots and strolled out into the cold sunshine.
The mountains remind me of the hills in Golden. Nice, but not nothing that will imprint
themselves on your memory, or not my memory at least. Yes, they are nice. Yes there was a little snow. No, I didn’t hear the great spirit of Altai
called Altai Kudi.
Anyway, so I walked back inside and Gabi asked for my help
with translating. Yeah, up until this
point no one really spoke to me and these days my Russian speaking skills are
all about grammar. Things like: ‘every
English needs a verb,’ ‘what is this?’ ‘we use this tense to talk about facts’-
I’m so out of practice with real conversations about trees and hair that I was
kinda useless. In any case, there were
more shots being poured and I needed to get out of my head for a while, so I
joined in the fun.
That night we went to the banya, which is basically a steam
bath or sauna. It was nice to feel clean
after such a rough trip. So once again,
I was trying to relax. The next day we
would be descending down a 50 meter cave.
The next morning we got all geared up and I was feeling
great. I still didn’t really sleep well,
but the medovkha helped calm me a little bit, but overall, the weather the warm
and everyone was in good spirits. We
piled once again into the Wazo and we were off.
We made it about a mile before we were stuck in the
mud. Not the snow, the mud.
One of the Sasha’s had put on some chains and
we were still stuck. After getting
unstuck, we jumped back in and we were once again thrown around like ice in a
cocktail drink. It was pretty fun; I
just kept getting thrown against the window so my back wasn’t happy with
me. Gaby was freaking out and at some
point I got thrown onto the floor and landed on the bags- I just decided to
stay there because it was so much easier.
After about 4 miles we got stuck.
Again. This time the guys had to
pull down some trees and pull out the shovels to free the
Van-of-Possible-Death. I was reminded of
the time I was in Mongolia with Tia and Sasha and the group and we got stuck in
the sand. After many minutes we were
once again free, but the van didn’t stop.
So we had to walk up the steep hill which killed my good mood; after about five minutes of trudging through snow and mud I
lost feeling in my toes, not from the cold, but from the pressure on my nerves
in my foot.
At some point I took in the view, which was finally becoming
noteworthy. The pine trees were covered
in enough snow to look like something that Thomas Kincade would appreciate and
there were deer and rabbit prints all around which meant that there was life in
these mountains after all. At long last
we finally made it to the cave; which was little more than crack in the
ground. Again, out came the medovkha. Our main guide, Sasha, asked us not to drink
the night before and I agreed that I wouldn’t.
However, I saw him take a shot and then Gabi, but I declined. My body temperature was cooling down and it
just seemed like a bad idea. I said I’d
wait until I ascended from the questionable hole. Gabi was far from calm, Gabi has a phobia of caves, but this was therapy for her, so I tried to cheer her up a little.
When all was said and done, Nickoli went first, then
me. I was quite bored watching Nickoli
and Sasha tie the knots and secure our ropes and I just wanted something to
do. As my foot slipped off the first
rock and my headlamp hit the rocks did it FINALLY occur to me what I was
doing. I saw the rope sliding through
the rek, (not sure if that’s Russian
or English) and felt the rocky wall beneath my feet and I wasn’t afraid. Yes, I was quite terrified when we were
practicing at the hospital, but this was different. This was beautiful. Not Cave of the Winds beautiful, but
beautiful in a way that was new and pretty much unexplored. I was surprised at how quickly I reached the
bottom of the cave, which is called Baltilka,
which is Russian for bottle. Nickoli was
there to help unhook me and I all but shouted with glee, ‘vsyo cobdnii!’ and I hugged him.
He looked at me like I was freak, but I couldn’t help it. I was happy.
My headlamp scanned the small area, and to be honest, there wasn’t much
to see. The only impressive things were
small black furry things on the walls which turned out to be bats. I also had never been in a bat cave before
and no, Carlsburg Caverns doesn’t count.
These were wild bats in a wild cave.
They were so cute and tiny, and also asleep. Nickoli was busy trying to deepen the cave by
chiseling into a corner and throwing rocks in my general direction. Again, not sure what to do, I decided to
stare are the walls of the metamorphic rocks, at least that’s what he told me
they were. Anti-social Sasha soon joined
us, followed by Gabi, then Sasha guide and seven year old Sasha. Honestly by the time everyone else made it
down I was bored and getting cold. Gabi was still having anxiety about the interior of the cave, but I was more
interested in making the long climb out.
As it turned out Anti-Social Sasha was more inexperienced than we were,
and Nickoli had to give him a ten minute lesson on how to leave a cave. Um, at some point didn’t it cross this guy’s
mind to do that before descending
into a cave? Seriously, where the hell
is my Logic Shock Collar?! So while this
guy was making the turtle climb up the wall he felt the need to kick at every
wall and rock he came across. He somehow
found a nest of rocks that needed to be liberated, so he did, right down on the
rest of us. Gaby and I were standing
near leg. the wall, we thought out of harm’s way, and since it was fairly dark
it was hard to tell what was really happening- all I remember is seeing a rock
the size of a basketball bouncing our way and I twisted my body around Gabi’s
to protect her and took the rock to my upper thigh and hip. The pain shocked me.
What surprised me
even more was the no one cared. Gabi didn’t even thank me. As usual. I should know better when it comes to things
like this.
Anyway, so after Sasha showered us with rocks and anger it
was my turn to climb up. Since my leg
was throbbing, this complicated my climb, along with the fact that my Crow was
loose and wasn’t holding the rope properly.
I didn’t realize my other problem until Nickoli pointed it out when I
finally reached the top. My arms were
shaking so badly that I could barely hold the cup of tea Sasha handed to
me. After I sipped some of the tea he
handed me the bottle of medovukha, which I happily accepted.
It seemed to take ages for Gabi to climb and then we had to
wait for the father and son team. As
expected, the little boy couldn’t make the climb so Nickoli had to assemble an
SOS rope apparatus. We watched him heave
and pull for about ten minutes in stunned and fatigued silence before it
occurred to us to help him pull. It was
really a two person job anyway; the Jurmiour
had to be adjusted after every pull; so while I adjusted this pulley thing
Gabi pulled. After what seemed like
hours, but it was probably more like five or ten minutes I finally saw the top
of little Sasha’s head. He was so tired
and grumpy that he couldn’t even muster the strength to pull his leg up over
the rope. I couldn’t even do it, I was
able to pull him up over the rope, but I didn’t have the energy to completely
pull him to safety. They make it look
so easy in the movies, let me tell you, it’s not easy. Nickoli stepped in while I rolled out of the
way. Gabi I high fived each other for a
days work well done.
Oh yeah, we had to actually get back down the mountain. Damnit.
All I wanted to do was take a hot shower, but since this Russia Land of
No Showers, I had to wait and deal with a banya. I was covered in mud and dust and my muscles
were already tightening and protesting my decision making abilities. The trip down the mountain was filled with
even more body tossing adventures. When
we clamored through the door we were greeted by applause and…ready…medovukha! I was really anxious to see my battle wound
since my leg was really, really hurting.
You can imagine my surprise to discover that there was no mark. Typical.
How could I forget that I don’t bruise?
What really annoyed me was that when I retold this story to the
Russians, mainly Sasha, again no one asked if I was okay and the guy who caused
the rock slide in the first place didn’t even apologize! I was trying to remember as I climbed up
where in the world he would have found all those rocks, and to this day I still
can’t figure it out. Neither could Gabi because we tried to promise each other to not drop rocks on the rest of the
team.
In the banya Gabi and I took turns checking out each others
scratches. I managed to get a collection
on my back, but I can’t figure out where they came from, along with some on my
stomach. She had some impressive bruises
on her inner thighs from the harness, and I still had nothing on my leg. I was pissed because I really wanted some
attention and a battle wound; something I could be proud of. Yes, I know how silly and childish is
sounds. Whatever.
Back inside the main cabin everyone was still drinking. I couldn’t help but notice that Nickoli and
Larissa had been flirting ever since they met.
Just to fast forward through the night when I tried to go to bed and get
some much needed sleep, I also saw her climb into her bed. Since the beds were lined up camp style, we
were all neighbors. Gabi and basically
shared one bed and everyone had bunk beds.
At some point a random cat joined me and just as I was experience some
kitty love I heard Nickoli climb into bed with Larissa. Really?
No way. We were less than three
feet apart. I had an instant memory of Dances with Wolves when that couple was
having sex and Kevin Costner didn’t know where to look or what to do. This was me.
A whole new level of awkwardness.
At first I was trying to be naïve and hope that perhaps they were just
snuggling. Ha. I heard everything. EVERYTHING.
Even the declaration of the ass and the how great the ass was. Again, at what point did my life become
reduced to this? Gabi was at the other
end of the cabin for some crazy reason encouraging Rock Slide Sasha to keep
playing the guitar even though he totally sucked. It occurred to me that she was doing this to offer
background noise for the rest of us. I
was so happy when she finally joined me in bed:
Me: OMG dude, I’m so happy you’re here! (whispering)
Gabi: Um yeah, I don’t even know what to say. Can you hear what they’re saying?
Me: (giggling) no! I
feel like I’m 13. This is so awkward!
Gabi: Oh I know! I-
uh, had an incident…
Me: Oh no, you’re expecting a visitor are you? Because that would really suck for me.
Gabi: (laughing) no, well, I’m not sure…
Me: (laughing) What?! Hell no, who?
Gabi: um, Sergeivich.
I don’t even know how it happened, but he felt me up.
Me: ew, and no! Crazy
man. I can’t believe those two are talking so much.
Gabi: I know. But I
think it’s logistical now. (more
giggling)
Me: Just so we’re clear, we’re in the middle of Altai-
listening to people…uh…
Gabi: Yep, welcome to Altai.
