June 5th, 2016

Latest distance... 3,108kilometres for 84 road days.

Having walked my 3,000th km just beyond the town of Vladimir I continued walking east. About an hour later I came to a bridge widening project and the busy four lane highway was down to a hectic two way. It was about 200 metres across the bridge, I ignored the no walking sign and crossed over to the opposite side of the road. As soon as there was a gap, I ran for it pushing Karma as I went and held the traffic up behind me for a good two minutes. The guy behind me understood , and bless him for he was patient! As soon as I got to the end of the bridge I stepped onto the shoulder and gave him a big hallelujah wave. He smiled and there was no honking from anyone. Whereas the Russians are the most dangerous drivers on my walk route so far, they are not uncivilised, often quite courteous. As mentioned in my last post, I broke my front axle that morning; so I was thanking my lucky stars it wasn't during this sprint across the bridge.
That night I made it to a hotel called Koerema. I had 44km behind me, I don't know the village name, for the Russian script is a problem for me. Most place names are a blur, meaningless names, for there are times when it seems I don't know where I am going or where I have been! It really doesn't matter, villages are just like a bunch of kilometre markers along my way. The only place names I can deal with are easy ones, Moscow, Vladimir, Ufa, Kazan and Chelyabinsk, everywhere else is lost on me.
I never realised there were so many trees in the world for it's been constant forest all the way from Germany. Its mesmerising to look at the forests for I can see only about twenty trees depth and their width is often several kilometres. I often wonder that if every tree in the world was stacked end to end, would it be far enough to reach to another planet!
Inside the hotel a woman called Katerina offered me a room for 1,500 roubles, about 21 euro. As it was after eleven pm I did not think it was good value so I went around the back to pitch my tent. What was the point in the room when I could be in my sleeping bag in ten minutes. Before that I sat on a wall and had my supper. Katerina came out and with our smart phones we had a google translate conversation. I told her about my walk, she said she wanted to help me. I made an offer of 800 roubles saying it was better than nothing and the room might be empty that night. About ten minutes later she came back saying they had heard about me on the internet ( or perhaps she meant that she had checked out the card I gave her) apparently the manager who was off duty is an avid runner and authorised a free bed for me on the upstairs reception sofa. A delicious bowl of beef stew was included, compliments of Irina the chef! So, after I showered in one of the rooms several more business cards were signed and I slept long and hard, until 9:30am; shame on me for three guests had checked out and had even left their keys on the reception desk beside my smart phone which was charging while I slept!
The manager didn't seem very talkative in the morning and by the time I finished breakfast and was ready to depart it was 11:20.
I made up for that late start by walking 26km straight through an area where the road became two lane, but thankfully they were wide lanes. An extra metre width makes a huge difference to me. Further on, I met the rudest travel cyclist I have ever met in my life. I pulled into the shoulder and beckoned her to stop for a brief chat as I wanted some info on the road ahead. Without even a glimmer of recognition or even a wave she just cycled on as if in a daze, I stood there looking her down the road; I sure hope she don't need any help from anyone on her journey, what goes around, comes around. A bit further on I saw a woman's training shoe on the ground, I would say it was hers.
I made it to a closed down petrol station just as a heavy downpour came, so I sheltered for my very late lunch of porridge oats cooked from the hot water in my thermos. Just as light was fading and with my second consecutive 44km I made it to a restaurant and had a bowl of beef stew, steak and onions and a litre of juice. The proprietor kindly threw in a free bed all for just over ten Euro. My bed was a mattress and blanket thrown up on a table in a back room. Once again some more nice people Sasha and his wife Marina are both from Azerbaijan. They were listening to some really fantastic Azerbaijani rock music, one tune in particular I was doing my own solo renditions to as I walked solidly the following day. That took me to just one hours walking short of just 300 kilometres east of Moscow. Not a bad seven days 'work' which included two pretty soft days. On the way I raced a black Porsche sports car which was stuck in a long ten plus kilometre bumper-to-bumper traffic jam due to a 100 metre bridge construction project. The workers were gone home for the weekend and still the chaos continued. Luckily it was on the other side of the road. The Porsche only beat me because I went into the pitstop at a picnic site for lunch!
Houses are becoming more and more dilapidated and even small things like bus shelters where I sometimes stop to rest are becoming more unkempt the further east I walk. Then I got a bad soaking in the afternoon, all because I was too lazy to put my rain gear on earlier, thinking I could out run the shower, but I failed miserably. Mistakes like this are good lessons in advance of the really bad weather ahead, when it will be vital for me not to take such risks. It was a great days walking, my 51 were achieved just before dark due to a 9:20am start; in a day in which I stopped for a total of two hours. I took two long and two short breaks. The distance to Mongolia is now about 5,100 kilometres/ 3,200 miles, the same as across the USA, from New York to LA. I expect to reach the Mongolian border in about four months.