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Day 10 - Getting the hell out of Rostov

Total milage: Approx 3,100 miles

Following on from the previous blog...

We awoke in the field to find quite a nice view greeting us - our midnight camp site was on the side of an enormous field, overlooking yet more fields. But it was nice. I had fallen asleep in the car, and apparently requested to stay there once we arrived in my lethargic state. Luckily though, I was so tired on arriving that I slept through the cramp. Mackey and Will set up their tents in the field, without the top sheet and relying on the fly sheet for protection against the army of marauding mosquitoes. 

Living rough like this isn't overly pleasant - ensuring you have bought enough water on the day before is essential, for that water provides you with a wash, a shower, drink, brushing your teeth, making coffee and cooking your breakfast. We are slowly adapting to it though, our bodies grudgingly allowing for a few days before resenting and demanding showers and a proper clean. Toilet facilities are… well, i'm not sure you'd want to read about that bit. Just imagine the sort of hygienic bathroom facilities cavemen for example might have, and you'd be imagining what  we have to go.

We've got the art of showering with a bottle of water down to an art - approximately 0.7 litres of water is the minimum needed to have a wash. This involves walking until you find a handy tree and branches, hanging up your clothes (both dirty and clean), and getting very much naked in the middle of the Russian countryside. So far, no surprise guests by alarmed farmers tending to their fields, but i have no doubt that will come.

We made coffee on our still wondrous stove, and cracked open some of our breakfast ration packs. Pork sausage, omelette and baked beans in a handy foil packet. Just 10 minutes boiling on our Whisperlite stove, and we tasted the best things ever. 
That's one thing we're finding about the rally - we're hardly eating anything. Drinking is another thing - we stop three times as much at the moment to buy water than fuel. The temperature reached 43 degrees in the sun - unheard of by us simple island guys. At that temperature, it feels like you're in a fan assisted oven, the hot air rushing through the essentially opened windows slowly cooking you. We're keeping on top of the fluid situation though - a good indicator is our urine. If we're not drinking lots of water, and I mean lots, to keep it a good pee-like colour, it begins to turn very dark. Certainly not a good thing. 

Back to the food - a combination of the heat, and always having to drink, means we're not eating half of what we used to. It's not a case of not having food on board - we have a good week's worth of meals in the roof box. It's just not on our minds when we're crossing countless kilometres in the car.

Once we'd showered and eaten, it was another repack of the car, before we set off. The three of us couldn't wait to get the hell out of Rostov, a place that we hate more than ever. The locals, the facilities, the police, everything - a low point on the rally for us, for sure. Our plan - to head east towards the city of Volgograd, and do some touristy stuff - visit Mother Russia was on our original agenda, and we intended to keep at least some of it.

Russia has more police than imaginable. I have literally seen more police in 24 hours in the first city we've been to, that 6 months on the mainland. Ha, I've seen more police in 10 minutes in Russia than my 7 years on Tresco. They like to hang out at junctions, where the unfamiliar motorist might make  little mistake, and with it bringing upon themselves a fine that will no doubt double the corrupt policeman's wage for the day. As expected, once we crossed one of these junctions, the baton came out and we pulled over. And once again, we ran through the legal checklists burned into our minds by now - every pull over leads to learning something new, but we were confident we were not fineable.

Will didn't have his seat belt on in the back. 

Queue the policeman asking to see Mackey in his little hut of extortion. Mackey followed obediently, and the police informed Mackey of the crime. In exchange for letting us go on our way? He wanted a "present". Then, in quite possibly the most brilliant thing Mackey has ever done, said OK, went and got Will, and said "I present Will Ash".

The policeman obviously got fed up of us English idiots who don't understand what he really meant, and waved us off. Win!
About 2pm, we considered stopping for some lunch; having breakfast and lunch in one day doesn't happen too much. We crossed over a bridge, spanning a small river width, and Will spotted a dirt track that seemed to lead down it. A quick U turn in the road, and we went exploring. The bridge itself was a typical Soviet affair - big, over the top, heavy, solid. Underneath it though was a big clearing, next to the river, so we stopped for an hour for some sustenance. Out again came the stove, and our lunch of choice was Super Noodles. 

We all agreed they were the best things we'd ever tasted. 

Off again we continued, after adding some English graffiti to a Cyrillic covered bridge, with Volgograd in our sites. The drive itself was very uneventful - long roads through thousands of square kilometres of the flattest land imaginable, the horizon swallowing the ends before ever seeing a hill or mountain. We did see an enormous fire from miles back, Will getting quite excited to see some fire. It was huge- billowing clouds stretching high into the sky, dwarfing everything around. Just though, as we were approaching the only hill we'd seen in hours, our Volgograd road turned off to the right. The fire, looked at with excitement by Will, was forever lost at the last minute (we later found out it was very, very big - the Russian army was drafted in to help put it out).

On we went, continually stopping at every other garage for more water, and occasionally fuel. Petrol is about 50 pence a litre at the moment, which we're happy with, and the water is good quality and plentiful (if rarely cold). Even if we do find a gem of a shop that uses it's fridge to our usual UK standard, the water gets hot within 5 minutes in the car. It's literally like drinking bath water. 43 degrees is the hottest we've experienced so far, and we're hoping we get a cold patch soon. Every litre of water you drink, you sweat out the same. A treat for us is to lean forward when driving, chin on the steering wheel. That way, the hot breeze can sweep across our dripping backs and give us at least 20 seconds of coolness.

This blog is quite horrible, what with the toilets and the washing and the sweat - I do apologise.

The most exciting thing that happened during that drive was one of our tents rolling down the road, having been left on the roof and eventually worked it's way free somewhere whilst flying down the motorway. Luckily I spotted it in the rear view mirror, else Mackey and Will would be getting extremely friendly in the tiny remaining tent.

We approached Volgograd at dusk, and city centre driving in Russia in anything but ideal conditions is a nightmare. Dangerous drivers, pot holes, hot women that you have a tendency to subconsciously follow… in the dark, this just makes it all the more dangerous. Finding a hotel this late without pre-planning would become an impossibility, so we were forced to find another makeshift campsite for the night. 

Our previous method, of turning down a country lane or path and pitching up out of the way, was proving to be a little more difficult in this area of the gigantic country. Everyone we tried was capped at the end by a village, or factory, or guard dogs. We tried every one on the 5 km running up towards Volgograd, and had to resort to turning around and going even further out. 

4 of the lanes proved interesting though - we ended up at a secret Russian army base. I kid you not - absolutely no signs whatsoever, down very small dirt tracks, before coming to a huge enclosed encampment, solid walls surrounding it completely. I think their security is a little lacking though - the 4 entrance points to this military installation each opened the two rows of security gates as we approached. Very confused. Probably not as much as the machine gun wielding soldiers, watching as a Citroen Saxo was trying to breech the walls by trying each entrance..

By this time, it was completely dark - which makes trying to find a camp site near on impossible. Without looking and looking, we'd probably wake up next to a train track (which almost happened) or somehow inside the army base. Eventually, hours after first attempting, we found a dirt track that led a kilometre off the main road, and a clearing surrounded by high bushes and trees. The ground was hard, the grass was tall, but it mattered not - we were tired and needed to sleep.

I couldn't find the tent poles to my tent, so had the misfortune to sleep in the car again. Will and Mackey camped yet again without top sheets, but all three of us accompanied by some rather hungry mosquitoes. We were tired, we were dirty, we were hungry and hot. After the troubles in Rostov, the long day's driving in the heat, stops and not finding a hotel, spirits were probably at the lowest they've been the entire trip. We hit the proverbial sack, hoping for the next day to be a better day and determined to find a long overdue hotel.