After a long drive from Lyon to Munich, where Raphael Thiebaut and I met with Sebbi Gruendler, we took our plane to Moscow, followed by a connecting flight to Irkutsk, the main city around the Lake Baikal. Of course we were heavily charged by the airline - but nothing surprising since we were allowed 60 kg of luggage (20kg per person) and we showed up with 170 kg... We tried to negociate with the russian robot they had put at the company desk, but obviously it was useless.
Once in Irkutsk, we met with Jens who had already arrived, and found out that our logistical struggle was far from over. We discovered we couldn't take the plane to the north of the lake as we had planned, because the plane wouldn't take our boats... The only option left was to take the world famous Trans-Siberian train to Severobaikalsk, a 32h journey through the toundra, to add to our already long mission from western Europe to the siberian rivers. The experience turned out to be very interesting, and we're now waiting to take the helicopter that will bring us to the Tompuda tomorrow morning. We're also working on the boat that will pick us up in 7 days in the lake, with the help of Rashit Yahin, a wise and knowledgeable man who has created an interesting site about the region (www.gobaikal.com). He was keen enough to let me type this from his computer.

It's actually pretty warm in the area with temperatures reaching a good 25c, not what one could expect from Siberia ! Consequently the snow is melting pretty fast, and the waterlevels are said to be high according to locals. We'll see by ourselves tomorrow !