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gested extreme pleasure. Before returning home to party, we agreed that it was the
most luxuriant
banya
we had ever had.
I rose at 10.30 a.m. feeling guilty for the sleep-in and as I tiptoed to the kitchen
for a glass of water, I was greeted by a cacophony of snores rising from the bodies
lying in the lounge and bedroom. More than happy, I returned to bed. Perhaps, after
all, it was a well-deserved rest.
When I awoke again, the activities were already in full swing. There was a plat-
ter of food and talk about an excursion to a nearby spring. As for passage to the
opposite shore …
'Five thirty this afternoon, it's all organised,' Slava said, proudly. 'The captain
is a bit eccentric and he is transporting frozen fish, but he will let you on board.'
Come 4.30, we downed a salutatory shot of vodka and cycled off towards the
port. Slava drove behind with all our gear - it had taken extensive persuasion to
convince him that we wanted to ride.
The whirlwind of laughter, celebration and good food continued right up until
we were sitting on the ship waving goodbye to our friends. Little more than twenty-
four hours after Slava waved us down, we watched him shrink into the distance.
We were stunned. So much had been packed into such a short time and the gener-
osity had been so spontaneous. I thought about what we had given them in return -
it amounted to little.
Eventually, I turned my back on Cevero Baikalsk and realised that we were
already forging to new horizons. The ship was a large steel vessel with cranes for
moving the containers of frozen fish. As my jacket sleeves flapped wildly in the
blustery breeze, I watched the hull crash through large swells. To the west the last
rays of light glinted off wave crests. It was more like a sea than a lake.
Rising from the distant shore, the mountains lurched from the water, blotting
out the sun. It was possible from our position to get some idea of the grandeur of
the lake, but the statistics were still mind boggling. Baikal is a word derived from
the Buryatian word
bai-kul
. It means rich lake and is the world's largest lake, con-
taining about one fifth of the earth's fresh water. It stretches 636 kilometres long
and reaches 1624 metres at its deepest point. They say that some people get vertigo
when swimming in its waters - it is possible to see forty metres down on a still day.
Nightfall brought a bitter cold. We crawled into our sleeping bags with the
sound of water lapping at the bow and wind whistling over the freezing steel. I
peered at the stars and settled in for a sixteen-hour journey.
