Novosibirsk
Day 9: Novosibirsk - 108 Days Across Eurasia by Martins Ate
It's midnight again, middle of Russia, middle of summer and southern part of Siberia. Now I'm moving towards Kemerovo from where towards Irkutsk, at the lake Baikal. It's so cold outside that I'm afraid of going sleep and I can see the air coming out from my nostrils.
I'm in a middle of a forest and surrounded by weird sounds. As it's Russia it's OK to expect some wolfs and the Russian national symbol - brown bear. So my attention stay's on high especially if I'm in Novosibirsk, Siberia.
Few hours later I finally decided to stop for the night just before turning to Kemerovo because it's almost 3 AM and nobody can see me on a road.
I walked inside a crop field and was hurry to make up my tent as local Siberian mosquitoes where attacking me even worse than a frost - while making up my tent I got about 50 bites only on my head and hands.
Now I'm "safe" if this word can be used at all inside the tent and putting on all my clothes as it's incredible cold. Probably outside is about 4 to 5 degrees Celsius.
Here where I've stopped is a biggest possibility to catch some lorry straight away to Irkutsk - which is only now about 1800 km. I'm planning to stay at the lake Baikal for a few nights then continue my journey towards China.
But for now - I've put on ALL my clothes, even swimming shirts as it's still very, very cold. Maybe not as much cold as my unpreparedness for this trip makes me feel about it. I need to get some sleeping bag for the next night like this or start searching for a warmer place to stay overnight already during daytime.
In the morning I waked up from cold. It was so cold that all my clothes didn't helped out much. Through the battle with mosquitoes at 6 AM I collected my tent and moved forward towards Kemerovo and Irkutsk.
Но если есть в кормане
Пачка сигарет
Значит все не так уж плохо
На севодняшньий день (Цой)
Translation:
But if there is in the pocket
Pack of cigarettes
It means it's not so bad
For current day (Tsoi)
Basically - never is so bad that couldn't be worse! :) i need to change my strategy. I will put forbid for me to sleep during the nights because of a cold as if temperature gets a little more down I might get frost. But this is the official last week of the summer in this region - so it will get colder and colder with each day.
Just about a hundred kilometers up North asphalted road ends. The last big city is Tomsk ad after that only some small villages. It's about -45 degrees Celsius in the wintertime in here and sometimes people are heating up their houses all year long. Just a two hours driving towards North from here starts tundra and wetlands.
Just this morning I realized that: I AM IN SIBERIA with a summer clothes.