We are moving slowly from the hell of the forest, but without significant challenges. The mosquitoes don’t give us a chance to attack.

We still have the side arm of the Tara Sala and only know roughly how far away the main river is. According to the map, we run in parallel.  

When the forest clears and everything becomes a bit freer, I climb a hill and explore the area. I see a wide valley with gravel and small veins of water. In the distance I even see two Naleds – year-round snow fields. A main river can only be guessed whether it has more water than ours can only guess. We decide to stay on our arm, which is now a little bigger. It is still not enough for paddling.

We treble for hours and hours; often we have to pull with all our strength over the large pebbles through which only a trickle drips.

We notice how hazy it is today. And then I notice the smell of smoke. There’s a big forest fire somewhere. The wind is coming towards us, so the fire seems to be ahead of us. As if we didn’t have enough worries …

After all, we manage to do a bit of paddling in the afternoon. If we could kayak through the river, we would be in Batagay-Alyta in two to three days. But going on like today, we need over a week, and in ten days we have to get a plane to take us to Yakutsk so that we can take our plane home two days later. 

As bad as the previous day was, today is so good. The weather is clear and there is no sign of the forest fire.

We pass an ice field again, when suddenly a single reindeer runs towards us in full gallop from a distance. Shortly before the naled ends, the animal stops and dances back and forth in front of us. As we slowly drive on, it trudges a little further, but not as far away as if it were ashamed.  

The nature is breathtaking and we can paddle almost all the time. We slowly leave the mountains and come through open plains, gorges and forests. It smells wonderful of the pine trees in the sun. We only had a few dangerous situations, otherwise there were even many lakes and quiet spots.  

In the evening we reward ourselves for the long distance with an early camp on a beautiful flat gravel bank, while we still have sun and can eat before the Mosquitos attack. Uli tries his luck at fishing again, but unsuccessfully. Apart from a few tiny fish, we haven’t seen anything on the way.