Here we are with some news of our first week! We finally took off even if we already have one month of delay according to our original plans, but we are here, on the road, in the nature. Our visas arrived quite late, but when they were ready..well, we still needed a couple of days to finish a few things on the car and to pack our stuff. So we left the 3rd of June and all our plans changed again. No time for Berlin, we drove directly through Poland. We wanted to visit at least Auschwitz so we put the geographic coordinates on the GPS and we arrived after 2 days (we are not driving like crazy with this Good old Land Cruiser). It is worth to do this visit, it is very moving, it makes you think about a lot of things. Poland is really a nice country and it is a pity that we cannot speak with the people to know them better. The language is really difficult and we had some difficulties just to remember “hallo, good bye and thank you”.
As we rather enjoy our trip rather than rush everywhere, we decided also to skip Saint Petersburg and enter in Russia from Latvia proceeding directly to Moscow. This allowed us to save few days and to use all the visa period to cross Russia. Like this our journey is easier, and we get more time to enjoy our days in Lithuania and Latvia. We stopped for a short visit in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania and both of us found it a really nice, full of young people, very clean and not chaotic. Few hours were enough to have an idea of the city and in the afternoon we took our road again to cross Latvia. Here the landscape is gorgeous, full of little bushes and lakes, with bunches of houses lost in the middle of nothing. We did not not have time to stop anywhere in Latvia, our Russian's visa already started and we did not want to loose more time, but we are curious to visit Riga, the capital of Latvia.
We slept very close to the Russian border, at Zilupe, the last city of Latvia, but the lack of indication of the land border made us loose time to find the international check point and when we finally found it and arrived at the border there where already a long lane of car waiting to pass through. So, we waited. The entire process took around 5 hours and we think it was not such a bad result. But it is crazy to face for the first time with the Russian bureaucracy. We were lucky to find a kind woman that spoke a little bit of English at the “custom gate”. She made us do three times the same custom declaration, but at the third time at least we were sure it was ok. We did it, we entered in Russia, the real trip started!
It's like entering in another dimension...or time. The landscape is pretty similar to Latvia for what we saw so far; only a little bit more rural, green, natural, but the car, the houses, the gas station, everything has a different atmosphere and the gray and rainy sky helped to increase the feeling of poverty and abandon.
Around 500 km separated us to Moscow on this badly shaped, worn, small double lane highway M9. Well, sometime this road can be a nightmare but they are repairing it and probably in 10 years they will finish it! We did not have Rubles at that time so we did not stop to any cafe along the street, but this is the first thing we will do now that we have cash; just to meet more people, discover what there is in all these little road houses.
Finally after a long drive, we arrived in Moscow on the 10th at the perfect rush hour traffic time. We already saw along the M9 that Russian drive like maniacs but here in Moscow's ring we learn their first rule: there is no rules at all. We took around 2 hours to understand where we where and where we had to go...with no accidents! Exhausted from the driving and after hours of learning Cyrillic on a bad map, we finally booked the first hostel we found in the Lonely planet and at 11pm we went outside to look for some food and money. The first approach with the Russian language. Impossible. Fortunately at least we can read now otherwise there is no way to get around here. We assisted also to a good street fight at the exit of the metro about 20 minutes after we left the hostel. Wet from the rain and after this unpleasant sight we decided it was time to go to sleep.
Moscow is huge, everything is heavy, the ring in the city has 16 lanes (and there are 3 rings in total in the city). It is clear that the city is not designed for people but for cars. Russian people love huge car (Hummer, Range Rover, Porsche Cayenne etc...) and they love drive them fast. It is definitely not a city made for pedestrians, distances are huge and to cross streets you have to take the subway stations from one side to the other. The cars do not care about people that walk in the street either and they can park and drive anywhere they want (including the sidewalks)! Not surprising that we did not see any bicycles and also very few motorcycles in this environment. Probably way too dangerous to drive something with only 2 wheels we reckon. Otherwise it is true, Russian women are often beautiful and very fancy with vertiginous heels. Tomorrow is the Russian national day and the Red square is ready for a party. We will surely check that out before hitting the road again to the East.
Réponse à JT: coupe du monde de quoi? oui, je sais que ma femme est championne du monde...
A Chris: Merci pour tes messages et encouragements! Une seule Mustang vue jusqu'à présent (récente) et je fais bien attention au Land Cruiser. On pense bien à vous, bonne continuation dans la restoration du fbk 68 et grand bonjour à la famille.
A Chiara: non ti preoccupare per le zanzare, stiamo studiando tutte le soluzioni possibili per sopravvivere..penso che qst sarà la vera sfida!!!
