Little Cabin in the Woods

When we got here yesterday, there was some confusion about where we’d be staying. Apparently, they don’t work on reservations out here, and a Dutch group had beat us to the cabin Vlad was planning on renting. They found another place close by, though, and it’s quite nice. There is electricity, and a wood burning oven in the central room that provides heat. It’s been really nice to have my laptop here. We plugged by MP3 player into it last night and listened to music while we hung out. Ora and Mark have used it to charge their Ipods (unfortunately I don’t have Itunes installed, so we can’t listen to their music), and Bill downloaded 300 meg of pictures so he could have an empty card.

Anyway, when we got here, since they weren’t expecting us and it’s a little before the season, they needed three hours to get the place cleaned up. We walked down to the beach and killed some time sitting around a campfire.

It’s been a pretty lazy day. Ora, Vlad and Bill walked up to a cave, but Mark, Tracy and I just stayed back here and laid around. I listened to some of my book on tape and napped. In the afternoon, we walked over to a local museum, down to a wharf that pretty much went inactive after the fall of Communism, and to a small store. At the museum, they told us that based on some of the artifacts they found, it appears that the American Indians migrated from Siberia. It looks like there are some very similar rituals. Tomorrow, we’re going to visit a small village close by and hopefully see the home of a woman who lives here.

There is no running water here, which means we have to take care of our business in outhouses. That’s been interesting… I also forgot to mention we haven’t gotten back hot water at the apartment since it went out, so the only shower I’ve had since the first day was that night at Yelena’s. They’re building a new bana here, and hopefully it will be done tomorrow. It will still mean taking hot water from the stove, mixing it with cold water, and pouring it over my head to wash my hair, but clean is clean.

I’m also going to have to try and communicate that I need to do some laundry when I get back. They have washers (well, my family does, Ora’s doesn’t), but no dryers, so I’ll have to be sure and leave plenty of time for my jeans to dry.