Big trips - big dreams

One day I understood that our life completely depends on us and it seems very long to wait for a miracle. It was the biggest dream of my life and I had been preparing for this hitch-hiking trip for 6 month, buying the minimum necessary equipment, saving money and convincing mother that it’s not as dangerous as it seemed. In this trip I left behind 16 000 km. Hitch-hiking was the best way for me to travel because I was a student with the brave heart, burning desire to travel and only $ 150 saved from the small university scholarship.
I traveled to different countries and visited many exciting places but I will never forget the day when I saw the deepest lake in the world for the first time, - Lake Baikal. It was the early morning, and I was napping after the long night drive. Igor, the trucker, touched my shoulder and I woke up. I saw the Black Sea before my eyes, the sea where I spent half of my childhood. “The sea? 8000 km just to see the sea?”. I was a bit disappointed as I expected something exciting and unusual, not simply a lake that looks like a sea of my home country. An hour later, we reached the south shore of the lake. The road was very narrow and lay in about 400 meters from the shore. On the one hand you could see the deepest lake in the world and on the other hand the mountains were watching you.
Igor stopped a truck, deciding to grab a bite and to leave me some time to look around. I got out of the truck and instantly smelled fresh air and smoked food. I finally saw Lake Baikal that I had been dreaming to see since my father had told me the stories about it in my early childhood. My father traveled a lot around the world but Baikal brings back the most special and tender memories. The lake was light-blue, huge and calm, and seemed very cold. It looked like an old giant surrounded by the mountains. It wasn’t like the sea anymore. The main difference was that you could see the opposite shore of the lake, covered with mountains slightly hidden in the fog. Sometimes this calm giant gets angry and shows his power. The year before the huge wave had appeared from absolutely calm water and had washed several houses and a hundred of people in the nearby village away. Something really powerful is in Lake Baikal. Maybe it is unexplained energy that attracts many free travelers from around the world. We want to feel this free strong primal energy and to keep it in our hearts and souls. I felt it and I keep it.