Astrakhan/Iceland
Desert
Hidden Folk
After final exams in Helsinki, Matt and I got back into Russia and took the train from Petersburg to Astrakhan, by Kazakhstan on the Caspian Sea.
From Astrakhan, we worked our way to the Kazakh border, and then wandered for a few days through the desert. Being out here, talking to the nomads, evading the Russian border guards, killing giant spiders--this was definitely the most interesting travel experience I've had.
Walking
Do a desert puzzle when you're bored.
Water was a constant concern. Strange features in the desert never helped--ruins of Soviet gas projects, we guessed. Woke up this morning surrounded by camels, with one very confused herder.
Kazakhs with wells helped.
Strangest animal I ever found. Looks like a turtle, moved like a turtle....but out there, in the desert? Guy was miles and miles from water.
Found the train tracks! After days, finally know where we are! Very thirsty.
Work our way to a village--has an ice cream stand!
Then, in a van back from Astrakhan towards the Caspian shore, we strike up a conversation with a woman who changes everything--took us into her house with her grandson in slum Orangereiy, Russia. Azia's her name, she is so nice and patient with our language--this is the genuine experience that the homestay in Petersburg never quite was.
Stray cats in Orangereiy's fantastically decrepit town square.
Russian country life. Life goes. My shoes were gross.
Lotus flowers in the Volga delta! Grow only two places in the world, Azia said.
Orthodox cemeteries over here.
After a few days she sends us off to a city we've decided to check out, Baskunchak--unexpectedly are met on the platform and invited in to stay the week with her kazakh family. This was really incredible.
Baskunchak was a salt town, all ethnic Kazakhs relocated to work at the factory on the salt lake. No one we talked to there had ever seen a foreigner before--most guess that we are young Latvians or Estonians (it was fun to press them to guess). Despite what was going on in Georgia at the time (perceived in Russia, by the way, as an American invasion of the Russian sphere), people here were nice, interesting and always really down to earth.
Salt lake floating; Talgat (head of the family); Karina (girl).
Farewell gathering with Talgat's co-workers; after dinner music lesson; Matt on the lake.
Muslim cemeteries in this part of Russia
Bulldozer on Baskunchak's salt mountain.
Then,
I met Jess in Iceland for 3 weeks. We had a little funding from the Dartmouth Outing Club to see if we could climb some volcanoes, but it was pretty apparent to us from the start that Iceland weather in September wasn't amenable to that.
Iceland weather in September.
So we hitch-hiked the ring road around the country--definitely the most fun and relaxing time I've had in some time. Whales, geysers, one fantastic Aurora--our postcard line was usually something like: "Iceland rocks! Great volcanoes, easy hitchhiking, (some) great weather, waterfulls, viking caves, and rainbows in every corner of the sky". It was pretty magical.
First day of hitching ended at an
isolated hot spring.
.....Stopped taking pictures of waterfalls after a while....
Fiery mantle ever underfoot....
Larger crater around Myvatn, in the north. Did a hike here as well as two near the south coast.
Reykjavik sights and flora
Iceland is expensive. Procuring food in Akureyri.
Moonscapes by Detifoss.
More gym tourism.
I guess I've done quite a bit of hitch-hiking by now, but this was the first longer trip where I kept track of all the rides. It came to 27 rides in about 1400 km (with side trips). I'd say Iceland was pretty average place in terms of the difficulty of hailing cars--harder than New Zealand but easier than the rest of Scandinavia or the US. Average wait was probably 15-20 minutes, though in the remoter parts of the island waits were quite a bit longer. We had a couple of long walks without seeing any cars at all--the worst probably being 23km on the way to Dettifoss. But it's great hiking country too.
These Russians, Ilya and Olga, were some of the only other hitchhikers we met traveling our way; one strange ride, 'Alf'.
Language was no problem. Icelanders speak English, and with Jess' Spanish and my budding Russian (actually useful beleive it or not) we could get through to almost all the tourists and migrant workers who happened to pick us up.
Well, there was an update for you. End of fun--I'm back in Hanover, bracing for the soul-rending course load this term: Math 13, Physics 13, Computer Science 5, and Russian 27. The fall here is gorgeous though, really gorgeous, so great to see everyone again, and interim's treehouse still hangs.
