20 August. Listvianka

One Limnological museum of Baikal, five mini markets, forty hotels and guest houses, and numerous restaurants and bars are scattered all over the town. Crowds of tourists, mostly Chinese, move along the road, visit the numerous souvenirs shops, and the fish market selling delicious fish prepared in different ways. 

Many jetties extend from the beach. They let the access to the numerous small and large ships that sail back and forth transporting tourists for lake trips.

Local street signs warn about possible thin ice. Nobody swims here in Listvyanka, only passionate scuba divers that explore the bottom of the lake with organized trips. The town is small, simple, but the atmosphere is vibrating. 

We are sealed in our karavanka guest house, fifteen of us. One toilet, one sink. Besides queuing for the toilet, we are finalizing the cruise report and nothing can stop us. Everything is methodically organized: sedimentology team, geophysical team, drawing team, photo team, translation team, interpretation team, cooking team. Everyone interacts between each other focussing on all the study areas trying to interpret the data acquired during the cruise and to shape the report to its final stage. We only interrupt for meals. That is when the cooking team activates. Today the menu was rise, potatoes and spicy meat. Various side dish salads were also prepared. Everything finished very quickly. Good sign.

Tomorrow everyone will present the data to finalize the mission, we will also have some visitors from Irkutsk Institutes that will attend the presentations.

Another day is reaching the end and Baikal salute us with another wonderful sunset.

Adriano Mazzini