Base Camp

Pictures
Hours Hiked: 0
New Games Learned: Duraka, 101, Contact, Cities
Hours of English Spoken: 1.5
Word Learned: Scots

Well today was an interesting day. We spent the whole day waiting. Kostya and Lena hiked out today and we waited for them to return. Turns out that the arm was in fact broken and Kostya came back alone. But he brought back meat and sugar coated hard tack! Oooo. Tasty. The day was completely rainy and most of us took naps, played cards, and just talked.

The game contact is really cool and was great for my Russian language experience. So someone thinks up a word. They tell the group the first letter, let’s suppose it’s A. Then the others ask questions like. Is it a kind of food? No, it’s NOT an Appetizer. It’s not a type of peace? No, it’s NOT Amnesty. If the person who thought up the word can’t think of one that starts with A…then they have to provide the next letter. Like AP. It isn’t a kind of fruit? Yes, It’s an Apple!

So Natasha and Katia were out wandering across the bridge and they met some foreigners. They couldn’t really talk to them, but they tried anyway. Turns out they were having a lot of problems starting a fire (it was a little bit too wet). So Natasha and Katia came back across the bridge to get a couple of guys and me as an interpreter.

So that’s how we met Helen and Terry – two Scots who were hiking in the Altai before Helen got sick and they had to hike out. Part of me wanted to stay in Russian language isolation and part of me was so relieved to speak freely. It’s amazing how much my personality is affected by ease of speech. All the team who were there talked about how funny I am and animated and how ‘beautiful’ my smile is.

So strange that they hadn’t really seen that in me before, isn’t it?