Water shortage

“How far is it to the border?” Tanja wants to know. “About 80 kilometers. We could make it to the border town of Kjachta today and enter Mongolia tomorrow afternoon. If there are any difficulties, we’ll still have enough time. That would at least be ideal,” I say. “To cover this distance, we would have to have the master at our backs, the mountains would have to suddenly dissolve and your knee would have to be healed in a flash,” I reply with a laugh.

When we leave our tent, the little flies are already waiting for us, ready to pounce wherever we don’t want them. They seem to particularly like the color of the Rapunzel muesli. Since it makes no sense at all to fish out the many flying kamikazes, we simply eat them too. Well fortified, we set off to climb the next eight hundred meters. At the high summit, we look forward to the descent. “No, no, that’s not a mountain. Maybe a barely perceptible bump, but not a mountain,” I joke about the flatlands of this region, which many Russians are accustomed to. “Denis! How much water do you have left in your drinking bag?” asks Tanja. “Not much more. Think half a liter. And you?” “Mine is almost empty too.” “And your water bottles?” “Just under 1 ½ liters left. That won’t last long. We should cycle to a village at the next opportunity to refresh our water supply,” Tanja suggests. We stop at a wooden hut on the side of the road. “Is this a street café?” wonders Tanja. “I’ll ask,” I say. “Hi! Hi! Hi! A cafe here? No. The nearest cafe is far away,” explains the funny Buryat. “How far?” “Well, there are a few in Kyakhta on the border.” “Can we find a magazine on the way there?” (grocery store) “No. The magazine is also in Kjachta,” her answer startles me, as it is still 75 kilometers away. “That means we have to reach the city today, whether we want to or not. With or without the mountains. With or without the master. We urgently need water,” I conclude. “It’s really strange. First there’s a village or a magazine or a café every 20 or 30 kilometers and now all of a sudden it’s over. Nobody can expect that,” says Tanja.

Knowing that you don’t have enough fluid in your bag makes cycling even more difficult than before. What’s more, I soon have a runny nose. Of course, this also requires liquid. “What a bummer. At least the nose could stop wasting fluids under these circumstances.” The sun burns from the sky as if it wants to turn the fall into a Siberian summer. My thermometer shows 28 degrees in the sun. We sweat like horses. Above all, we make very slow progress due to the incessant inclines. Every now and then, but only when there is no other option, I tug on the drinking tube of my spring water bag. My palate is dry and I long for the fresh, cool water. If we had enough water with us, I might not even be thirsty. As is so often the case, my psyche plays tricks on me. “Or is she not playing a trick on me? I’m just really thirsty,” I think to myself and wonder how Tanja is doing. “Just don’t get carried away, otherwise you won’t be able to take it anymore,” is her clever reply. “Where does she always get the clever answers from? Of course I don’t get involved. But I still have an almost irrepressible thirst,” I think. “Water! Water! Water! A whole lake of it, right now,” it keeps running through my head.

“Can I help you?” asks a driver for the first time since Krasnoyarsk. “But yes,” I reply happily. “We need water.” “Water? Why don’t they have any water in this area?” he asks, to which I don’t feel like having to give an explanation. The man gets out of his car and looks in the trunk. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any water either,” he replies, which is why I could ask him what he does when he breaks down unexpectedly in this area. The friendly Buryate stops a postal bus to ask the driver for water. “No, he doesn’t have any water either.” “How far is it to Kjachta?” I want to know. “Around 50 kilometers,” is the sobering answer. “Is there another village on the way there?” “No, there’s nothing more. Whatever. I wish you good luck and a safe journey,” laughs the driver and speeds off. “What can you say to that? Either he thought I was joking or he didn’t realize the seriousness of our situation. Or did he not want to recognize the seriousness? That would really have meant having to help us. Either way. It’s not his fault. We made a planning mistake. We simply hadn’t reckoned with the fact that there were no more villages on this route. Our maps are too bad. It only shows the larger settlements. And yet we were obviously too careless. Clearly our own fault,” I say to Tanja. “Maybe there will be a village after all? It could be. I firmly believe so,” I hear her voice. “Well, better to be confident than panicky,” I think to myself, not wanting to go any further into my circling thoughts. Unfortunately, there also seems to be little rain in this region. All the streams have dried up and the grass has been burnt brown by the sun. So we can’t even extract liquid from the beautiful landscape. Strange. There was endless water at Baikal. Hundreds of rivers and small tributaries feed it and we mostly drove through a kind of marshland. That’s only 150 kilometers behind us. Perhaps there is a weather divide here?

An hour later, we are pedaling our bikes around a bend when I think I see a few houses ahead of us. “Tanja! There’s a village up ahead!” I cheer as I’m sure I’m not being deceived by a mirage. My knee and my stupid runny nose are quickly forgotten and I let the cranks glow. “Is there a magazine here?” I ask a man sitting with his child and wife in the shade of a tree in front of his house. “Yes. Right there,” I hear and am pleased with his answer. When I arrive at the store, I try to open the door. “Locked,” I remark disappointedly. “The owner lives over there!” shouts a neighbor. A little later, Dewuschka opens her store, where almost all the shelves are completely empty. “Do you have any water?” “Just a bottle,” she answers sheepishly. “I’ll have that. Do you have any juice?” I ask because I know that Russians like to drink juice with their vodka. “Yes, I have,” she replies, whereupon I buy two liters of it. Back outside again, Tanja and I plunge the 1 ½ liter bottle of water down our throats. I’m laughing and happy. Just before that, it was the aches and pains that made me think. Then came the threat of water shortages and the previous problems were suddenly no longer important. Something bigger and more disturbing has simply displaced them. “So, what does this experience empty me of? It is obvious that we believe our current challenges in life are elementary. They put us in a bad mood. They make us depressed and then all of a sudden something bigger, something worse comes along and simply shrinks the previous challenge to nothingness. For me, this means that these challenges were already nothing before. That we just gave them too much weight. At least so much that they had the power to negatively influence our lives. Maybe I’ll manage not to give these little problems too much weight in future. That would be ideal. Then life would be easier.”

Before we cycle on, Tanja fills up all our water bottles and sourcer backpacks at the shopkeeper’s fountain. Now with fresh, cool and delicious water from the belly of Mother Earth, we continue our exciting journey in high spirits. After five kilometers, we take a break in the shade of some trees. We enjoy one of the last trail mixes from Rapunzel, delicious Russian cookies and wash down the delicacies with plenty of fountain water.

As the westerly wind blows in dark storm clouds again, we decide to set up camp for the night under an avenue of poplar trees 20 kilometers before Kjachta. As soon as we sit in the tent, a thunderstorm breaks out above us. The earth shakes with thunder and squalls rattle the canvas. “It was a good decision to set up our camp here and in good time,” says Tanja.

We look forward to your comments!