Welcome to Siberia

I woke to the fierce winds and the rain pelting down the side of our tent. Disoriented I searched for the indigo button on my watch; 2:35am. It took me a moment before I could convince myself to crawl outside to check the tent; it was flapping more that it should have been.  

By the weak light from my headlamp I could see that four of our upwind tent pegs (holding down the tent), had been pulled out of the sandy ground by the ever increasing winds. I hauled our food barrels over and used them to re-anchor the tent, fingers crossed they would hold till morning.

By first light it was apparent that the storm had kept its strength, another check outside revealed that the winds were indeed head winds. No good for travel, back to bed.  

The following day, the weather had eased off just slightly, sick of being weather in our tents, we enrobed ourselves in our Kokatat dry gear, and faced the storm. The head winds slowed our progress considerably, but we inched our way forward, mostly thanks to the current. This was indeed Siberia's welcome to us. As we head further into Russia, we are slowly leaving the steppe behind.  Forest blanket the tall hills that parallel the river, ger`s (Mongolian yurt) are now replaced by small log cabins, seen sometimes along the river banks. And slowly we approach Lake Baikal, Siberia’s weather cauldron.   

By Sarah McNair-Landry