Beauty of Kherson region
It was evening, there was nothing to do. So spontaneously, it was decided to start the ninth season of travel from Kherson.
I would love to post a photo with tickets and hotels before the start of the season, but this time all I can attach are tickets that still receive refunds for canceled flights. Oddly enough, all hotels, buses and almost all airlines, with the exception of UIA, have already made refunds.
- How long will we go to Kherson?
– We can do it for the weekend, although it might rain on Sunday.
- Well then, let's go tomorrow, Thursday evening?
That was decided.
Kherson
The city met us early and sunny in the morning. Golden autumn has already passed along the alleys that stretched from the station far to the center. Although yesterday in Kyiv everything looked quite summery. Such a change of season and sunny weather began to turn a sleepy mood into a positive one, and the owner of the apartment also said that he could check us in right now at nine in the morning. And we have already managed to load things into the ATB storage room. We ran back for things and settled. What I love about ATB is the wide network of stores that allows you to store things for free in almost any city in Ukraine. In Kherson, they also have double lockers for large backpacks))) Our apartment turned out to be royal) It looked pretty funny, I had never slept so that plaster statues were looking at me, and all the signs of the zodiac lined up around the chandelier.
Now let's see what sights there are in the city itself. The first guide suggested that I choose Amsterdam or Berlin instead of Kherson. The second guide said that there is a park nearby, and the nearest attraction is 170 km away and is a square in Nikolaev. Yes, there are not many sights here. But we knew what exactly we came for, here is all the beauty outside the city. We just need to find out who has a car here to take us. It was easier in Kamenets, the city is small, everyone knows each other and can quickly tell who is lucky where and when. In larger cities, this is more difficult. This time we were rescued by the Good Taxi service. They position themselves as a taxi that can take you anywhere, give a tour and take you back, all this is enough at a loyal price, they also took good photos for us. We tried to order a car to the sands on other popular taxis, but the whole difficulty turned out to be that the desert has no address, and for operators and mobile applications it turned out to be a blocker.
Oleshkovsky Sands
The drive to the sands is not long, about 50 minutes. There are different races, the main thing is not to call in where tourist groups start, otherwise you risk seeing the canvases of trampled dunes. There were no trampled dunes from the side of our arrival, but to the central part of the desert it was necessary to trample well, let's say, to prove that you really deserve the desert. Although there was a road to a more central part, Dasha and I decided that it would be more interesting this way. Our total hike took two hours. The desert is significantly different from the Sahara and even from the desert that you can imagine by looking at the photos in the reviews.
It's just that in the photographs everyone catches good angles. There is no infinity of lifeless sand dunes or palm groves and high rocks, nevertheless, all the romance of the desert is here in full. There are also ominous tree branches that look like snakes, here you can read the latest desert news right from the sand.
For example, here a hare ran towards the center, or the fact that someone has sat down in this hole and has not left for a long time, and even the fact that the wind has repeatedly changed its direction over the past hours - this is clearly seen from the rings of patterns around the plants.
Tracking the tracks here is a really fun game. True, some traces have not been deciphered, for example, why someone's legs turned into paws or how someone walked with one foot, as well as what secrets lurk in oases from dense forests. Although I'm starting to guess about the one-legged trip. It is very nice to walk barefoot on the sand.
Just new sensations under your feet, and there are also many sinister thorns hiding here. And if it is unsuccessful to enter, then you will jump on one leg. So one less secret. Instead of palm oases, there are dense forests here, I didn’t even know that a forest ten by ten meters can look so dark and inhospitable. But of course, the most beautiful thing is the sunset in the cooling desert.
We walked spellbound, unable to take our eyes off the red ball. The main thing is to calculate the time so that you have time to get out of the desert before dark. In our ranking of deserts, I put it in second place between Tunisian and Egyptian, even though it is not so big and not so lifeless. I definitely recommend the desert, especially for people who are struggling with insomnia, after the hike you will sleep like bunnies.
Kayaking water maze
It was a foggy early morning. We came to the embankment, where a motor boat took us from the pier, it is also a water taxi. The address to be given to the motorboat was in the format “Kayaking to Tatiana”, and we were taken to one of the islands where you can rent kayaks.
We sailed to a very interesting place, we did not expect to see this. There were many islands around, on which the locals have dachas. The areas are minimal, the dachas are tightly pressed against each other, but life is in full swing. The feeling that we are sailing through the canals of Venice. Tatyana learned our wishes and described in detail the route that would suit us. We recorded the details of the route on video and hit the road. Usually people take a kayak for the whole day and land somewhere for a picnic, but we decided to actively swim without the risk of capsizing when disembarking.
We were really very lucky with the fog, all the beauty of the river streets, reeds and lakes immediately increased several times. And when an hour later the clear sky began, then all the beauty was rediscovered for us in a new guise. And the beauty is constantly changing. These were wide waters, and narrow passages through the thickets, and a full-fledged river, along which the trees had already begun to change into autumn colors. Now it seemed to us that we were sailing along the Bentota River in Sri Lanka, looking for marvelous animals - this log is like a crocodile, and this snag is the spitting image of a monitor lizard. Most of all I wanted to swim closer to the water inhabitants - birds.
But they seemed to want our acquaintance the least of all, although the frogs were glad to see us, in any case they did not run away from us. Our route took 3.5 hours, the last two channels were a real test of dexterity. The width here was several meters with many bends, and our double kayak was not very dexterous in turning.
We crashed into the shore a couple of times so that for a minute we tried to escape back. We were mega-satisfied with this trip, although we were tired of active rowing. Upon returning to the base, they called the captain of the boat to come and take us back. The way back was unusual, everything looked different than in the morning. In the fog, it seemed to us that we were alone here, but in fact there were a lot of ships and other water transport around the Dnieper, no worse than cars flying along the roads in a metropolis.
What a joy it was to fall into a bed in a room. Especially after a dense Georgian meal. But only half a day has passed, we urgently rest for an hour and continue to discover new places. We called the driver and said they were ready to continue the journey.
Stanislav Grand Canyon
There was a desert, there were rivers with lakes, now there are mountains! The mountains here are not too high, but insanely beautiful, especially at sunset. Surprisingly, there were quite a lot of people here, but there are so many mountain landscapes that there is easily enough space for everyone. There was even an advertisement for car detergent filmed near us.
The main thing is not to open your mouth wide from all the beauty, a lot of midges live in these places, and if you disturb them, they will quickly find all the cracks on the face) There was another hour before sunset, Dasha and I climbed all the cracks in the cliffs that we could find.
Time flew by like a couple of minutes. And here it is - a romantic sunset right into the clouds.
I just don't believe anymore when people say that there are clear sunsets in the sea. In my experience, this happened once in Georgia, and then every time in the last ten minutes some kind of cloud appears and that's it, goodbye sunset.
The most interesting thing is that at first it was the same in Georgia, and even some of the people left, but at the last moment the sun again came out from behind the clouds and set into the sea.
The sun has set, all the mountains and faults have been explored, the plan has been fulfilled, you can return to Kherson. It's a pity that the day consists of only two halves, so they would still have time to wave somewhere)
Let's return to Kherson
The promised Sunday rain ended before we went for a walk, which is good. But the fun list is over. Let's go wandering around the city, maybe we'll discover something for ourselves. The list of popular excursions includes a tour of the courtyards, which means there are interesting courtyards somewhere, so let's start with them.
And the courtyards here are really cozy and interesting. Almost all of them are located along the main pedestrian street. Here, probably, each courtyard tried to stand out in terms of coziness in relation to the neighboring one. The search for courtyards took place in the mode of a kind of game, many of them are closed with coded doors and you can get in if someone left, but did not close the door behind him. And this happens here all the time. Of course, I'm not sure that these are the courtyards that tours take, but we liked it. One excursion website said that during their excursion we would listen to the ringing of bells, it was at that moment that the ringing began. Great, done one more thing. While we were looking for another courtyard, a local woman approached us and asked what we were looking for. When we explained that we were here in search of something interesting, she sent us to look for the cherished street, the name of which she did not remember, she only remembered the name of the politician who began to ennoble it in an interesting way.
She told us a landmark and showed us in which direction to look. And now this is quite interesting! It does not appear anywhere in the sights. Fortunately, I found this same politician on the Internet, and there he was being interviewed about a gentrified street. This street is called “Kanatna” on the map.
It’s really very nice here, the facades of the houses were updated and painted with interesting pictures, unusual sculptures were installed near the houses. It turns out a new landmark of Kherson. The street is not finished yet, many houses are in the process of being changed, so it will be even more interesting soon. But among the old sights, we really appreciated the embankment, located in the Park of Glory.
This is a good place to relax while admiring the panorama. Okay, we went for our things to the next storage room, it's time to return home and come up with something else interesting, while it's warm. It was a great and active weekend, thanks to Kherson, and especially to its surrounding beauties, we will definitely come to this area for new discoveries, see you soon!
Trip Information
