Caucasus

Dear readers,
Here is a little update of our trip from Sochi (RUS on the Black Sea)… waiting for our boat that should take us to Trabzon in Turkey.
Crossing the Caucasus was neither a good or a bad experience. We didn’t find this time the same atmosphere that we enjoyed in Siberia and the Altai.
Police became quickly an annoyance with the same level of corruption as their Kazakh neighbors. We’ve been stopped at least two or three times per day. One of the good time was when they stopped us because, on a very windy mountain road I dare to drive ON the white lane in the middle of the road… they even showed me the video that they recorded hidden in a bush a few minutes earlier. Without a word of Russian I understood that they wanted 100€ for this. Absolutely absurd of course but with time my ability to play stupid and bother them with all my stories of travel, visa stuff, broken suspension etc… they finally let us go (also probably because the lane of other drivers behind me was getting long and easier to rob than us I guess).
After Astrakhan we passed through the city of Elista that is pretty nice to mention. It is the only Buddhist city in Europe and all the temple does make you feel like you are still in Asia.
Caucasus has this bad reputation about security so we tried to camp in remote area, hidden in bushes or woody field separation. We never had any problems with anybody here though and all was good until one morning one of our car battery decided to quit his duty to start the car when we need it! Unfortunately we were in a field where the dirt had been flipped so impossible to start the car by pushing it (and believe us, we tried!). Luckily enough we have two other batteries in the back of the car that we use for the refrigerator, water pump, radio and that can serve us as spare ones for the engine. So, all I had to do is dismantle our electric system and switch everything. There was a little stress when everything was done: one night of refrigerator + radio on in the evening lowered the power of these batteries and they were not charged enough anymore to start the car. Mother nature gave us a solution to this new problem: open the hood and let the cold batteries warm up thanks to the holy sun! After one hour well exposed the batteries were happy enough and accept to start the engine. One day of driving after that finished to charge the new batteries and the engine is back to normal now. Arrived in Sochi we bought a new battery to replace the dead one and I installed back in its compartment in the car for the refrigerator.
Sochi is also our getaway point out of Russia. Yesterday we bought tickets for the ferry that will take us to Trabzon (if you need information about this F***ing expansive way to cross the Black Sea don’t hesitate to contact us). The boat was supposed to leave tonight but the ticket office already announced one day of delay so hopefully sometimes tomorrow night we will be on board (please cross fingers for us)! The good aspect of this is that it gives us time to write you some news and enjoy Sochi… under a pouring rain!
We’ll talk to you next time from Turkey.
Cordiali saluti a tutti!!

H&E