Astana, Kazakhstan
After my last post we headed for the 'switzerland of Kazakhstan' with was an awesome place to wake up but took alot of driving. Today we plodded along to Astana where the guys are staying tonight.
PA, USA
Made steady progress yesterday; set off as a convoy of three and found our our old friends from Germany... Team Bob. We also met Rob (team lolyaks) who was abandoned by his teamates by Istanbul and has ben going solo ever since. Some roads here are great and some have pot holes the size of our car.
Aktobe, Kazakhstan
We bumped into four other teams this morning ( including the previously mentioned Brazilians) after a long sleep last night and are now travelling as a five. Kazakhstan is beautiful with lovely people and there is now a very peaceful feel to our journey. We have all come to appreciate Britain alot on this trip, from the quality of our lives to the people we share the country with. Although we miss home and the chance to watch the London games, we would not trade away these experiences.
Uralsk, Kazakhstan
Crossed the border this morning and have been staying at our prebooked hotel. Kazakhstan seems much more friendly and has had better roads so far.@
Samara, Russia
Made great progress yesterday on terrible roads. Today we finally get to leave this country and begin heading east.
Volgograd, Russia
We made it to old Stalingrad last night after a hard day's drive. Will flew back home early this morning and we would like to thank him for comig this far with us. The best feature of Volgograd was the 72 metre statue of Mother Russia with her 11m sword and a very helpful member of airport staff. Having barely eaten on the ferry Max is back to eating at every opportunity.
Krasnodar Krai, Russia
Sorry for not updating yesterday, i will try cram it all in this one. After we arrived in Sochi we ate and watched the F1, then spent the night by the sea. Unfortunately a member of a team we were with got picked up by the police for being far too drunk. We pulled together as a team and got him out of there, with the help of a very nice Brazilian team, and we showed the other teams our level of maturity. I am sure you will here the full story at some point soon. Yesterday we grabbed some car insurance and left at around 2pm only making it as far as Armavir last night. We have realised that we are only having 1 meal a day at the moment, not that my body has noticed, so we will try and eat a bit more going forward. Me and Will have learned the Cyrillic alphabet and are planning on learning some more basic Russian. The temperature is also alot cooler while remaining sunny which is a welcome change after the heat of the past few weeeks. The fuel is only 60p a litre here :). Dispite our original optimism however, Russia is as unfriendly as we feared. The people don't smile, the roads are bad and we have already seen several fights and police road blocks.
Sochi, Russia
After 24 hours in no man's land/ferry we are now in Russia. Sochi has completely blown us away; it is how we imagine miami not Russia. We are in a hotel for the night waiting to get insurance tomorrow and get moving.@
Trabzon, Turkey
Our ferry isnt here until Friday which leaves us a bit of time to kill. Trabson isnt the nicest place (quite aggresive) but we have found a nice campsite on a beach and are just relaxing now.
Samsun, Turkey
Drove along the coastal roads yesterday towards the ferry. We all slipped on our racing shoes for some incredible roads before finding a nice cheap room for the night. Almost at ferry now, will update when we know what we are doing.
