mange, tu aimes

Today’s plan was to leave between 8 and 8:30 for a long drive to Esso. We got up at around six, were allvery efficient with helping eachother bringing down the tents so that we were all set for breakfast even before seven. Again incredible what Larissa prepares for our meals. We run out of milk and cream but if that is our only problem then we gladly take it. We said goodbye to that wonderful landscape and went off the bumpy roads. Lunchtime was in a dried river bed where not so many mosquitoes come for lunch, too. Those tiny things are incredible. If you go for a pee into the woods you have stinges all
over places you definitely don’t want them to have. Men having the same problem, btw. We arrived in Esso quite early after sveryone fell alseep in the truck after lunch. We had two hours before visiting the Ethnographic Museum and the Concert so we first enjoyed a shower, then a bath in the hot swimming pool and my mum was so kind and did laundry. The water of the washed socks needed three times changing. We took a lot of volcanic ashes with us. We strolled through the little village of Esso with 2000 habitants. It had electricity from hydra station and lots of warm water from hot springs. There are metal tubes in the bathroom for heating,
you can’t touch them so hot they are and they hest uo the whole room. They are excellent in winter and of course for laundry but less appreciated when it is 28 degrees outside! The ethnographic Museum is a outdoor one with houses of the indigenous people. They have almost the same equipment and way of life like the Inuit - of course there was a lot of trading between all of those tribes. Interestingly some already during their life made their funeral dress with a hoodie on and when they died the hood was places on the face. There had also shamans, the last one lived until the 60ies. Of course they were forbidden during the Soviets. Nowadays only a couple of hundred people are indigenous. Their history was like the polynesians told and not written so a lot was lost during the time. After the Museum we went to a hall (not before some of us filled up their beer proviants for the next days) where we had e exclusive concert of a group called Nulgur (I think. I will look it up in the book, but we are at the moment in the bus to the snow valley and Christine, the owner of the book, is sleeping next to me. We are driving through very very dense forest, it is beautiful). Anyway, that concert and dance was magical. They showed us dances from different indigenous tribes, like the dance of the seagulls, the salmon, the reindeer. Oh, about animals, there are raindeers, moose (biggest animal in Kamtchatka with 1 ton), brown bear, wolverines (Vielfrass), Zobel (or something like that. They call it here the soft gold because if its precious fur. Btw, the whole leather making process was a womans job), lots of birds and fishes. The spectacle went for an hour and we returned to the hotel for a good nights sleep in the bed. I was so happy because for the first time here in Kamtchatka I felt really 100% good since I had a nasty cold since arriving here and my knees, that tries to make new records in swelling, got a bandage and I feel like I will be able to climb or rather get down the next three volcanos. I am so thankful. Now just the weather has to play along.Read more