(This should be read before The Happy Ending Story)
I’m starting off with two bits of good news: firstly, we found a bottle of port and some blue cheese in a supermarket in Atyrau! Secondly, as avid readers of the blog, you will no doubt already know that Brian was reunited with us – so I won’t bore you with the details of that. So with Brian back on board, the port safely stored away and the cheese stinking the car out we headed to the border with Russia. We only had a four day transit visa with which to travel through Russia and we had lost a day of that waiting for DHL to cough Brian up; so it was a case of ‘foot to the floor.’
Not so easy when we had had our first proper snow storm the previous night and the road turned from being flat and smooth to practically undriveable. If you cast your minds back to my blog ‘The Great Road Cake Off‘ then you’ll know about the road conditions on some of the more rural roads in Central Asia. Imagine methods one to ten all being combined in one icing technique – we had holes that you could have bathed in and ripples you could have surfed over. Now couple that alongside the snow, ice and failing light. The 300km drive took six hours – for the last 20km we didn’t break 30km an hour!
We eventually arrived at the border at 6.30pm in pitch black with snow falling and decided that we might as well continue on through the border crossing. The Kazakhstan side took about 20 minutes to clear, while the Russian side consisted of queuing, thankfully while sat in the car, for more than four hours 🙁 When we did eventually get to customs we were greeted by, quite frankly, the most cheerful genki Russian we have ever met. (Never thought I’d say those words!) Just before midnight we cleared the border and collapsed, exhausted, in the back of the car having literally stopped just off the side of the road.
The next two days were spent driving to the border with Georgia. We encountered a heavy snow blizzard (that slowed us right down); were pulled over by practically every military/police blockade (of which there were numerous); ate even more crap food than we’re used to (which is saying something); stopped to camp metres from the road as dusk fell (going against our usual camping etiquette); and gazed out at the depressing emptiness of this part of Russia (dotted with decaying Soviet towns and cities).
Now where’s that happy ending that the title suggested – this all sounds awful? Well do you remember the cheese and port? Yum 😉
The story continues in The Happy Ending Story…..