Hey,

We arrived in Krasnoyarsk and were met by Anatoliy our guide, at the train station. Matt and Karin had arranged to stay with the same guy so we headed off together. Anatoliy drove us in his dilapidated lada to his house pointing out the many highlights of the city! We were staying with a russian lady called Gallina, who was very sweet and made us lovely breakfasts each morning. It was really nice to stay in a home after so many nasty hotel rooms! She didnt speak any english but we managed to communicate with her by guestures and drawing pictures for her which was very sweet!

We relaxed in our room and had a much apprecaited shower after a couple of days on the train. We then headed into town to explore and finally had a russian kebab thingy which we had been smelling for ages in lots of towns but we could never work out what it was! The town was very nice and the sun even came out which was really good especally as it has been so cold along the way. We looked round the big museum which was cool and then headed for some dinner. We eventually ended up in a cool bar but we had to leave early as we had arranged to go hiking the next day! We missed the last bus back to Gallinas though so had to get a cab back which was fine but took it us a while to recognise where we were staying and the cab man thought we were mad!

The next day Anatoliy picked us up bright and early and took us, with Matt and Karin to the Stolby Nature reserve. We parked the car then walked at top speed up a massive hill to get to the main park and me and ren were lagging behind right from the start! They walked so fast and didnt stop for any breaks so we were exhausted! Eventually made it to the top and the views were very impressive. There are a collection of rocks in the nature reserve and the area is really big for rock climbers who climb without ropes! crazy fools! We visited a bunch of rocks, and climbed up most of them to see some very impressive views of the nature reserve. It was really fun climbing around on the rocks and we got some really cool pictures. It was just nice to be out of the cities we have spent so long exploring and get some fresh air!

One issue we did have was with ticks as from may to september is the prime time for ticks and niether me nor renny had the tick jab before we left so we were worried about getting infected! We asked Anatoliy about 100 times if ticks would be a problem and he assured us that if we stayed out of the wooded areas and kept covered up we would be fine! So me and renny made our very own tick suits with our trousers tucked into our socks and our ever trendy kags in bags keeping our arms and heads covered! see the pics for how hot we looked!

We had some lunch on the rocks and the Anatoliy asked if we wanted to continue for another half hour to see this other rock, we though why not whilst we are here and the ther rocks had been so pretty! However after walkling for about an hour and a half in the middle of the wooded (and tick infested) areas we eventualy reached this rock which was rubbish. Renny was really worried about the ticks as along the way we had found a couple on our clothing and neither of us were very impressed (as renny put it - 'its going to take a long time for me to see the funnny side of this!') We eventually arrived back at the car, hours later having walked 25km, something niether of us had signed up for earlier that morning!

When we got back to Gallinas flat, we immediatly stripped off all our clothes and started checking for ticks! We were so paranoid that we had been bitten and spent hours checking ourselves over! Luckily we didnt have any bites but Matt and Karin both had tick bites so had to go to the hospital to get them removed and then have them analysed to see if they were infected. They were given the all clear the next day which was good news but very worrying. We wont be heading into any tick infested areas anytime soon thats for sure!

We relexed at Gallinas flat that night as we were both exhausted and renny got really sick that evening from the stress of the ticks earlier that day! We then spent monday chilling at home as renny was still feeling really sick. It was nice (for me at least, not so good for renny!) to have a day chilling and reading my book! I met Karin and Matt for some dinner in town and then headed home to pack. Galina had done loads of washing for us which was fantastic as my clothes were pretty gross by that stage!

Our train left Krasnoyarsk at midday on Tuesday and we were heading to Irkutsk for a few days to spend some time at the lake but check out the next blog for that one!