Leaving our wonderful campsite was easier than expected, well it started raining during the night and no improvement was visible. So we decided to head on, towards the Katu Yaryk Pass in the Altai Republic.
But before heading there, we had a stop at some famous rock carvings, most of them around 5.000 years old.
A bit further on our way we found another famous spot in the Altai. It seems to be a tradition to put rocks like this in place at special spots. And here they even carved a face in the solid rock.
Moving on we had the pleasure to meet again other travellers, this time even with a similar car than ours. So we had a nice roadside meeting ones again.
After a short chat it was time for us to move on, filling our water tanks and leaving the civilisation again for a while. Always interesting to see though how people are living here in the Altai region. Filling up water is made easy, as most of the houses do not have running water from the tab as we are used to. So everybody is using the same source of drinking water.
And then suddenly Russia hits you with sceneries, as you would expect them from all the documentaries about the region. Seeing it yourself is of course much more impressive, forest till the horizon and amazing landscapes. It might be even better with sunshine, but we liked it a lot and enjoyed it as much as possible.
Isn’t this what comes to your mind when you hear “Siberia”?
Reaching Katu Yaryk we were a bit disappointed we must admit. Of course the landscape is amazing, but there are so many holiday homes and parks nowadays that it looses a lot on the atmosphere from our perspective. The pass as such is also by far not as tricky to drive as they pretend it to be, even in the rain.
However still a nice trip up there, even though that the way as such is much more impressive in our opinion than the pass. But we in the end enjoyed our time very much, especially our land campsite in the mountains of the Altai Republic.
Our time in Russia is now coming to an end, at least for now, but as we will come back later this year on our way to Vladivostok, stay tuned how it continues. For us it is now time to head into Mongolia, looking forward to thirty exciting days in another different country.
