KAMCHATKA LAND OF MYSTERY AND MISTS - Page 12

Friday noon, 5 of us ate at the toy store lunch room. Samples of the food was displayed in a glass case so ordering was easy: we could point to what we wanted without a language problem. I ordered a clear chicken-vegetable soup. It was served with knife and fork - but no spoon. The soup turned out to be cold and the broth was jellied. I did need the knife and fork and did not need a spoon.

Our last group activity was that afternoon. Partly to make up for the drive toward Avachinsky Volcano we missed the day we took the boat cruise, we took the bus to a Pacific Ocean beach. It was another overcast day. Still, getting out of town was nice, especially since we had to vacate our rooms shortly after lunch and nobody seemed interested in going anywhere in town. This was the 1st time we had been to a beach in Kamchatka. It was much like beaches almost everywhere except that the sand, like the rest of Kamchatka,was black volcanic cinders. Many of us walked about ½ mile down the beach to a fishing trawler {Pic. #44} which had come ashore in a storm some 18 months earlier. It seemed simply to have been abandoned with all the nets and rigging still aboard. On the way back into Petropavlovsk, we stopped at a swampy area to look for birds from the road. There weren't many. The only one we identified was a chickadee.

After supper we were to leave for Anchorage and home on the once weekly Magadan Airlines flight at 10 PM, Friday, 18 July. As we were waiting in hotel the lobby for the bus to take us to the airport, a wedding party came in. Rumor had it that the bride was the daughter of the governor. Whoever she was, all stops were pulled for the reception. There were 2 footmen in late 18th century, white satin suits and powdered wigs and even fireworks when the bride arrived. {Pic. #45} I would like to have known who the man was who carried the red fox tail everywhere and why he carried it.

Victor, Marina and Olga all went to the airport to see us off. The 2 big questions were would all the many pieces of various volcanoes Eileen had collected push her and John's luggage overweight [They didn't.] and would Magadan keep to the published schedule. [It did.]

I had a good, if long, trip home. As on my flight to Kamchatka, routing was the most direct possible with the fewest possible changes - 1 in Anchorage and a 2nd in Minneapolis. Layovers were long enough for me not to worry about missing my connections and short enough not to require waiting long for boarding. I got to the house about 11:45 PM, Friday, 18 July, went to bed as soon as possible, slept soundly until time for a late breakfast and, for the 1st time ever after a trip several time zones from home, had no jet lag problem. I was able to keep to a normal day and night schedule from the start.
I was very lucky to be with a good roommate, an unusually compatible group and two outstanding tour leaders. I survived my time in Siberia quite well and I had a wonderful experience!

And So Ends This Account of a Visit to Kamchatka in Siberia.

Alice D. T. Rawles