August 11.
Diary Entry
Konstantin reports that he cannot find a car. So we only have the option of venturing the adventure to Batagay-Alyta across the Tala Sala River.
If this river had dried up as much as the Sobopol, we would need two weeks with our slow speed with our luggage and it would be scarce with our return flight.
We visit the Evenen with our concern to take their horses for the start of our trip. However, it lasts until noon – we can still participate in the buffet in the dining tent
– until we start with riding horses for Uli and me, a pack horse and an equally mounted guide.
They want to take us to a place where we can paddle the Tara Sala River.
We hope to get to the Sakkyryr and from there to Batagay-Alyta.
We have an enormous advantage: it won’t be night. We have all the time in the world, except that it gets cold at some point and the mosquitos become extremely aggressive in the evening.
And we could miss our flight. But at the moment it only matters that we somehow come back.
The journey with the horses is wonderful. We cross mountains, ride across vast plains and through shallow rivers. Slowly coniferous forests begin again. Uli cannot ride and his horse is hardly tied to the pack horse’s tail, as soon as we have left the camp and his horse breaks out or simply stops.
I am happy to remember my riding skills and let my horse trot or trot around the group. In order to exchange cameras or take good pictures, I keep opening Uli.
In the evening, after about twenty kilometers, we reach a point where the river seems to be really deep. The nomad packs up the horses and we drink from his tea. We offer him some of our vodka, whereupon he doesn’t say no – he empties everything that’s still in the bottle in one go.
There it goes, our good Russian booze. We pay the man, whereupon he starts his ride home drunk and we build up our camp.
We try our luck at fishing, but it doesn’t bite anything. Now we are really alone again in the bear country and now have the task to do a hundred kilometers on our own.
Time and distance have completely different dimensions here in the wild.
A kilometer is suddenly a great distance with all the obstacles that have to be overcome and the hardships that have to be overcome.
It only pays off in days because everything goes slowly. Time stands still. It is very, very quiet in this part of the world.