05.08.13 The Mountain Hike!!!

Today was our first day on 'Extreme'.  We had not so secretly been hoping that we might have done this earlier in the camp but it actually worked out quite well as Eco had given us an excellent opportunity to get to know others earlier in the week.

We had selected our activities for all three days of Extreme the night before and were all set for our Mountain Hike which was going to start the experience.  We had decided to do the walk first so that it wouldn't be too hot, this turned out to be a good decision as it poured it down in the afternoon!  We knew that the walk would be hard work as the Russians walk at quite a pace and it was more than we had done since leaving the UK.  Despite a few struggles with the steepness and some balance issues on the root strewn mountain we all made it to the top where we were greeted by hundreds of giant flying ants - yuk!  We dropped down from the summit for some ant-free photos before heading back down to camp for lunch.  There were lots of amazing plants and butterflies to be seen on the way.

After lunch we went for a sub-camp volleyball match.  It turns out that we're not very good at volleyball but we enjoyed it all the same and provided some entertainment for everyone else.  In the evening we visited camp '50' which was about the furthest from our camp.  They were very welcoming and we coped really well without Nastia (our translator) as she had to go to a leader's meeting with Alison.