Today’s lesson: Kazakh policemen are some of the nicest people in the country. Chocolate croissants from Kazakh gas stations are surprisingly tasty.
Ending Point: N47°07 E51°55
Distance Traveled: 236.9 miles
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There are so many wonderful things about traveling with a big convoy. Getting a timely start in the morning/early afternoon after a party is not one of them. It must have been 2:00 or 3:00 PM by the time we rolled out of Astrakhan, but we made it out of the city eventually and on our way towards the Kazakh border. The unmarked and slightly confusing roads were a hint of what lay ahead, but we enjoyed traveling over a floating bridge to cross a river that we followed south then north then south again before making the turn that led to forward progress. Just before the border, we made a shockingly efficient gas stop (though I’m sure it did not seem that way to the Russian family waiting for a pump behind us). While all of the passengers got out of their cars and meandered about as usual, the drivers took care of business until George of Sitting Thunder pulled out the megaphone and encouraged, “Please return to your vehicles! Please return to your vehicles!” A-ha, the organization/cat-herding we had needed all day! We arrived to lines at the border on the Russian side and took it as an opportunity to play with our convoy. The Frisbees, footballs (in both the American and British senses), and GoPros came out, and we no longer cared about the lines. To advance the Panda in line, Charla even attempted driving! With ease, even though everyone was filming, she put the Panda into first gear and inched forward. When she didn’t stall, the cameras went away and the toys came back out until it was our time to cross. After officially leaving Russia and a fairly long no-man’s-land, we arrived on the Kazakh side of the border. Even though the border guard found Charla’s passport too thick and annoying, we were soon into Kazakhstan and a whole different phase of the Rally. The road quality changed immediately, and we found ourselves faced with some sizable potholes, broken pavement, and uncertainty with directions (not to mention with the animals being herded past). The Cads had struggled with clutch issues for most of the Rally, and the first 100 kilometers into Kazakhstan were no exception. We trailed behind as they made it to a mechanic, who upon inspecting the situation, pulled out their snatched clutch cable. Unfortunately, the mechanic did not have a replacement nor was one available for some time. Three aggressive, homophobic Russian young men got involved as well and kept asking us for iPhones, which they argued would also be a payment for the clutch cable, though they had no relationship to the Kazakh mechanic. So, we got out of town without a clutch cable for the Cads but with everything else luckily intact. The sun was setting as we dealt with the difficult situation, but the convoy agreed to push on to Atyrau that night. It was a late night of driving on some pretty iffy roads, but we made it with the help of walkie-talkie conversations and a bag of chocolate croissants. Today’s lesson: Kazakh policemen are some of the nicest people in the country. Chocolate croissants from Kazakh gas stations are surprisingly tasty. Starting Point: N46°80 E48°00
Ending Point: N47°07 E51°55 Distance Traveled: 236.9 miles
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We woke up with a plan to head a little further south to Vama Veche, a hippie beach town we had heard good things about from Rally Veterans (the beach party used to be there) and from current Ralliers who had somehow already stopped there. With itchy feet to be on the road again, we talked to the Long Time No Sea girls and decided to go north for what we thought would be an easy day trip to Odessa. We couldn’t have been more wrong, but we’ll get to that later… The day started out wonderfully. Charla made her scrambled eggs, and we packed up camp. We left Oha Beach and drove through scenic coastal Romania. Reaching the town with thought would lead into a National Park and a border crossing into the Ukraine, we realized the crossing was impassable by car with the help of a kind couple in a Lidl parking lot. So, we headed to Galati for the nearest border crossing, after discovering the boat at Isaccea was just for commercial purposes and then taking a different boat across the Danube and into Galati—this just after the “highway” dead-ended into a ferry terminal. Getting on the ferry was an orderly, timely affair. You could tell the ferrymen had arranged cars on a boat a time or two. Getting off the ferry was every-man-for-himself with every car driving quickly to get through the small space and onto the dock. We’re surprised we didn’t get separated from the girls then. There had been no street signs to indicate major highways in Bucharest, so why did we hope to see them here? We passed Around the World by Trike as we entered downtown Galati, and seeing both team members throw up their arms in a “Where the hell are we?” gesture was not inspiring, neither was the fact that we couldn’t physically get across enough lanes of traffic to talk to them about the journey. We made two stops in town—one at a nice hotel and one at a duty free shop on the Danube—and received contradicting directions. Somehow, we made sense of them and got onto the road out of the city, which soon led us out of the country. Getting out of Romania was a breeze for our EU pals, but we had to wait about an hour. The funny thing about waiting an hour at the Romanian border was that we had no idea whether we were going into Moldova or the Ukraine based on the maps we had, in which the three countries converge at one point. Then we had to wait another half an hour to get into Moldova. The two miles we drove in Moldova were quite nice. Then, the real adventure began. We’re not sure we even have words to describe the Moldovan-Ukrainian border. Our first indications were talking to Ralliers already at the border that had been there for between two to thirty hours. We certainly did not want to fall into the latter group’s case. In the three hours we were at the border, we managed to have the car fully searched, sign legal documents under duress without knowing what they said, nearly go to prison, and run out of cash. We finally crossed much too late in the night and found the girls anxiously awaiting us a few miles away. They had talked to another Rally team for part of the time we were stuck at the border and were hoping to meet up with them. In the dark, a wrong turn led us off into the middle of nowhere, so Pandaland stopped and cooled it for a couple hours. Today’s lesson: If you hear it’s an “easy day trip”—whether from fellow Ralliers or Google Maps—it’s not. Prepare for hell. Starting Point: N44°16 E28°37
Ending Point: N45°35 E28°35 Distance Traveled: 453.3 miles After a good night’s sleep at the campground, we woke up ready for a full day thanks to the tolling of the town’s bells right at 6:00 AM. While Chase packed up the tent and arranged the car, Charla made her now world-famous scrambled eggs on the camp stove. Pandaland approved! (Yes, now they are even more famous! Or was it the Nutella bread on the side?) We crossed the border into Slovakia with ease, leaving us time for a photo shoot with the country’s welcome sign and to purchase the necessary vignette for our vehicles; the former was much more exciting than the latter. Despite a couple of stops in search of postcards, we came up empty-handed and pushed on to the Hungarian border. Not too far from the border, we had a Panda convoy mishap and watched as the yellow Panda headed down the wrong highway. We pulled over with the leading team to search for them—more or less staying still until they could circle around to find us. We made signs for passersby on the road and even tried hitchhiking to Mongolia. We couldn’t find anyone to pick the six of us up, however, and so we were thrilled to see the yellow Panda come around. From there, we headed into Hungary, where the border crossing followed a similar pattern of photos and vignettes. Just inside the border, we found ourselves driving alongside row after row of sunflowers. Who knew Hungary was famous for its sunflowers? As appropriate for the name, a few of our teammates were hungry, and we found a local café for lunch. While it was nice to take a rest from time in the car, the long lunch unfortunately put us much behind our schedule. We pushed on, though, as we took the lead and finally made the Romanian border. We’ve been talking for a while about when we will feel a change—about when we will start to feel like we are at the end of Europe. It happened today. The Romanian border was easy for the EU Ralliers, but we were held up for a while as they checked our documents and stamped appropriately. As the border foreshadowed, entering Romania was pretty hectic. We first went through the city of Oradea, where we’re really surprised we didn’t lose the other two cars in traffic. Then, we set off on by far the worst road we’ve been on yet. There were sheep that came out of nowhere. At one point, the road functioned as a cow path. Then, we got into the mountains. The scenery was breathtaking, as were the sizes of the potholes in which we nearly lost a couple of Fiats. The crazy road made for slow traveling time. We had hoped to make it to a Pit Stop party in Sibiu, but we settled in Halmagel after finding a Pensiunea Minerva that was coincidentally hosting the R.A.T. (the Romanian Adventure Trophy, an off-road navigation rally) We got a good deal as a different kind of Rally group and settled in for the night with a local dinner of meats, cheese, tomatoes, potatoes, and bread. Today’s lesson: Minimize stopping time or you miss the party. Starting Point: N49°37 E20°42
Ending Point: N46°16 E22°36 Distance Traveled: 341.9 miles |