Departure from Luxembourg Airport
In the car wiht Nicolai, up to the village of Anos
Our room in the guesthouse in Anos
Beautiful landscape seen from our room. At the left you can see the Katun river.
'Bridge' over the katun river. We crossed the bridge on foot, the car followed ;)
View on the Katun river, seen from the bridge
Luc and Koen photographing the bridge
The car made it too :)
Bridge building, russian style
Little bridge too some holy place with a chapel
Our first small walk in the Altai mountains. Notice the trees with the white ribbons (we don't know yet what this is).
Gaz station with great discounts ... ;)
Not in use any more
Luc
Telengit decorated tree with white and blue ribbons
Cooling down the engine
The landscape is amazing
Beautiful valley. Note the electricity poles, who go up to even the farrest village!
Burial places for important Telengit leaders
'Standing women' from the Telengit
Endless mountains around the beatiful valley
Koen with women
Luc also showing off with his catch of the day
Little bus that's gonna bring us to our camp site
Arrival at base camp.
Snow in the mountains
Exploring the camp site
Sibalp camp site, next to the river, surroundend by impressive mountains and with view on the glacier !
Everything one needs to relax: a баня (russian sauna) and a river to cool down afterwards :)
Our friend on our walk to the Ak-Tru glacier
Squirrel on the tree (little bump in the middle of the right tree)
Sergei, our guide to the Ak-Tru mountain
Remarkable, one side of the valley is dry and bare, the other one is full of grass and trees!
Nice white flowers
On the way...
A lot of butterflies over there !!!
Ak Tru glacier comes into sight
The guys doing idiot
?????? (horses) running around freely
Some other horses came rather close :)
This is about the farrest our little guide accompanies us
Little Ak-Tru left, Big Ak-Tru right...
Little Ak-Tru
Melting water from the glacier
Many options on our way back
Another view on the Ak-Tru glacier
A small meal and off we go again!
Bridge, can handle even small trucks! (if they take their own wood with them to fill up the missing pieces of the bridge :)
Many big (to me unknown) birds
Lake near the camp site, nice and warm, but a lot of nasty plants and fishes in it :)
My highly intelligent company
Small man, big universe
Deserted mountains all around
Nice blue flower
One of the millions of grasshoppers, unfortunately not sharp
Local fisherman
Heaps of grass to feed the animals in winter
"Bridge"
The water in the little streams rises often very rapidly
Cliff next to our camp site
Black kite?
Black Kite (zwarte wouw)
Black Stork (zwarte ooievaar)
A bus full of 'Hollanders', over the creaky bridge leading to the campsite ... :)
Holy place of the Telengits, on the way to ??? ????
White and blue ribbons in the tree, for good luck
Standing women, a reminder of the adhesion of the Telengit with Russia (only 140 years ago).
Stone women. Telengit sacred place.
The guys in the camp, on their typical spot in the shadow
View on the eternal snow, seen from the camp
Waiting for the eclipse, from the well chosen hill
Clouds make the waiting quite exciting
This 'pineapple' wouldn't move...
bedenk het zelf maar
Everyone gets into position
Looking forward to the eclipse
Local man and his daughter join us
Clouds hide the first minute of totality
Landscape becoming completely dark
Totality
Camp fire at basecamp.
Eclipse observing site.
Waiting for the eclipse.
Waiting for the eclipse... f*#% clouds.
Annelies
Local man also watching the eclipse
And so does his cute little daughter
Charlotte just being herself.
2 trucks stuck, third one pulls them out
In the little truck, there's a poor little sheep
First encounter with Class Five, on the left Sergei the translator, and Jana who will guide our raft
Putting on the wetsuits and stuffing everyting in the drybags wasn't such an easy task ;)
First camp site with Class Five
Man in the bushes
Danil, very nice rafting guide!
Dima and Irina at the cooking place. The buckets are used to boil the water for thee :)
Ready for the next day of rafing!
In the front Luc and Koen, in the middle Sergei and Sofie, then Irina and Luda, and Jana at the back
Ready for the river...
Safety catamaran in Ilgumensky rapids.
First night of the rafting trip.
Beautiful scenery
Little fish, cold water
Big fire, we need a lot of charcoal
Camp 2.
Yana
Vanya packing the gear-raft
Shabash rapids.
Lunch on rafting day 3.
Sushi for dinner...
Petyroglyphs, capricorns?
Hunter and horse
Danil getting the safety catamaran ready
Sofie and Danil
The ladies... (the bump of curls is Sofie)
Oh no! This is the end point of our rafting trip...
Recognize the plant...
Last camp site
Last stop: Moscow.. Here you see the historical museum on the Red Square
No Lenin for us, the mausoleum seems to be closed on thursdays...
Saint Basil's Cathedral with two sundogs (bijzonnen) and the 22º halo
Saint Basil's Cathedral with parhelic circle halo
We love Russia!
Inside the big and beatiful GUM shopping center, a former communist store
