It was surprisingly warm last night, hardly needed the big new duvet! Clouds had formed during the night keeping it relatively warm. Caught up with a few e-mails this morning before heading off towards Kosh – Agash which is only about 90 km down the Chuysky Trakt. After that it is just 73 km to the border. On the way we decided to fill up with water. The bottles and tanks total about 75 litres plus we have another 5 litres of bought bottled water. It turned out that it was a sacred spring.
In the trees you can see the prayer ribbons they are placed their by locals for which animism is part of their religion. It is basically a primal belief in the presence of spirits or spiritual qualities in objects of the natural world, particularly peaks and springs and their spirits are thanked with token offerings (ribbons, stone cairns, coins, vodka bottles) which you commonly find around holy trees and mountain passes.
I’m not quite sure I understand why vodka bottles should be included? Makes me wonder if camp fires are given the same treatment as they are also often piled up with them as well!
Again the views along the road were amazing and we stopped several times just to sit and look and sometimes fish.
The trees are starting to change colour now. It is definitely the end of the season. Lots of the little camps where you can stay in huts are closed down and some of the cafes along the way have been boarded up.
As we carried on towards Kosh Agach the scenery got drier and drier.
The town of Kosh Agach is a really dry dusty place, but people are still friendly and smiley.
It is always interesting to see how other people build!
The counterbalance on the crane is an old crankshaft and a bucket of ballast.
Final stop before we left to find a place to stay was the supermarket.
It may not be much to look at but has pretty much all you need. Next stop …. Tashanta.
I know we keep saying it, but any time now we are going to run out of 3G and there will be a big gap in posts. You can still see where we are by hitting the link on the home page …. as long as we remember to press the button on the spot!
troopytracks 