Kamchatka, bears and blues
Two years ago I was lucky enough to get an internship at one of the best travel agencies in Kamchatka. For a month, I not only visited the most picturesque corners of the region, but also met many wonderful and interesting people. And where there are people, there are always different stories. I want to tell a couple of such stories that happened to my tourists during their travels.
Tricks of nature
It all started with a trip to natural park “Nalychevo” with a group of 11 Germans and one Austrian (while the group included 11 men and only one woman, which is already funny). A helicopter was supposed to take us from the city of Yelizovo to Nalychevo. But the weather had its own plans, and it was not possible to fly out of Yelizovo on the scheduled day. The next day the weather improved a little, but still did not bode well, and everyone almost resigned himself to the fact that nothing would come of it today. However, we managed to fly away, but, as it turned out later, this is only half the battle, because you have to come back!
But I won’t get ahead of myself. So, we arrived in Nalychevo. This is a natural area surrounded by a semicircle of active and extinct volcanoes, with many thermal springs, a river and an amazing natural platform – to cross it, you need to walk only on specially laid boards, since the platform is made of soft rock that can fail (at the same time it is rust-colored ). And around the pit – it is impossible to see their bottom.
Impressions cannot be expressed in words… And what is Kamchatka without bears! However, all the bears live on the other side of the river from the guest houses, where we, in fact, were accommodated. And although sometimes they still come to the houses (this is both frightening and intriguing), we turned out to be lucky: the bears did not knock on our doors. But one day I managed to look at them from the balcony of the local museum. The bear and two little bear cubs seemed to know that they were being watched, and gave a real performance: the cubs played with each other, for which they periodically received scolding from their mother, climbed trees, scratched their backs on the bark. In general, they showed a show that you will never see in a circus …
Nalychevo Natural Park, Kamchatka
The helicopter won’t take us home…
This is where our luck ran out. The weather was disgusting, everything was damp. And the most annoying thing is that because of the fog, we did not manage to fully see that same semi-circle of volcanoes. In addition, due to weather conditions, we could not fly home. Only two joys remained – swimming in thermal springs and talking to each other. The second was very pleasant and useful: we communicated in three languages - English, German and Russian, got acquainted with the culture of another country. They even performed “Katyusha” – this was asked by our comrades from Germany. The highlight of such “cultural evenings” was the “Nalyche Blues”, which was composed by one of the tourists. The blues was originally in German, but especially for us it was translated into English and contained something like this: “… we have already seen bears, bathed in springs three times a day, but the helicopter does not fly to take us home.” Everything would be fine, but the foreigners have a flight to Moscow in a couple of days, and they still need to go to another group of volcanoes and make two ascents (we almost decided to go home on foot, it would take at least two days). And the worst – food stocks were running out fast. How happy we were when on the fifth day (instead of the planned two) we found out that a helicopter was flying behind us!
So, the return to the city took place, but it was not possible to join the benefits of civilization, because we immediately went to the next route – to the foothills of Vilyuchinsky, Mutnovsky and Gorely volcanoes.
Climbing Gorely volcano 2007
Climbing Gorely volcano 2007
That’s the meeting!
The new place was also not without adventures. But first about the lyrics. We climbed the Gorely volcano, which is 1800 meters above sea level. Indescribable emotions when you stand on top of a volcano, under you there are craters in which lakes sometimes come across, including an acid lake of bright blue color, there are only volcanoes around (one gets the impression that there is nothing in Kamchatka but mountains!), helicopters fly somewhere below … This delight must be experienced by yourself! When we went down to the camp, our wonderful cook (it was thanks to her foresight that we did not starve to death in Nalychevo) organized a farewell dinner for tourists, where many kind words were said.
To the departure of this group, another arrived – 20 people, among them Muscovites, Danes, an Austrian, a Belgian. When everyone went to the Mutnovsky volcano, one Moscow tourist, having taken his lunch box (dry ration), decided to independently go to the thermal springs located nearby … Evening came, the group descended from the volcano, but this person did not return. We were worried, but then a brave tourist appeared and told us such a story. He lies, then, in the water, naked, only a panama hat covers his face. Suddenly he hears a rustle. I thought that someone passing by decided to appropriate his provisions. Imagine his surprise when, taking off his panama hat, he saw a bear five meters away. So they looked at each other for a few seconds, and then the predator took lunch and ran away. I think you can imagine the state of a person who comes face to face with a bear. From the stress he experienced, he told his story a hundred times. But everyone turned out to be patient people, they only joked: it was probably a bear, saw you, decided to get acquainted, and you bought her off with a sandwich … For sure, for a tourist, such an incident will become one of the most vivid memories in life!
Waterfall Calm
I think this is enough for you to understand how impressive my trip to Kamchatka was. I advise everyone!
Published in the magazine “Your Megafon. Far East, 2010
