Wedding anniversary!

Wedding dayWhen I wake up early, my gaze falls on the slime trails of the slippery snails that have made themselves comfortable on our inner tent. The all-encompassing humidity does not exactly create the best atmosphere. We have to pull ourselves together to get out of our warm sleeping bags and step out into what is currently a hostile natural environment. The dampness makes our limbs feel paralyzed. It takes an eternity before we leave the tent. My fleece jacket didn’t dry properly despite the body heat in my sleeping bag. Because we have nothing else, I put them on anyway. I hand Tanja the Ortlieb bags outside to clear out the awning. Spiders and all sorts of indefinable small animals from the Siberian forests crawl over the Ortlieb pockets or have made themselves a comfortable home there overnight. A fat spider has actually managed to nestle under a white self-woven coat of a pocket seam in the few hours of the night. As I take my rain jacket out of a locked saddle bag, I notice a tick just in time. “The sneaky sow has had herself locked up so that she can bite me today in Selenruhe,” I curse.

Tanja has already boiled water. We drink hot Sonnentor tea, which warms our throats and gives us energy. We eat a few cookies, kefir and muesli. Then we load our Intercontinental and leave the damp camp to drive another day into the unknown.

Suddenly, hills appear in front of us that I couldn’t make out on the map in this form. We get very warm when we step up. At the top I have to wait for Tanja because we have different cadences on the hills. This is enough time to cool down completely and no longer get warm. The first thoughts of aborting the bike trip at the next opportunity start to haunt my brain. “But then what? That would mean having to cover over 1000 kilometers more than planned next year. Does that make sense? We actually want to spend the winter with the reindeer people next year. But that also means getting there first. An extra 1000 kilometers would be a real time problem to cover the planned distances by bike and horse. So what makes sense? Slowly succumbing to the humidity and the coming cold doesn’t make sense either,” I think back and forth. Tanja is in a good mood today. That builds me up a bit. I grit my teeth and wheel my luggage up one ridge after another.

Suddenly the main road ends in a dead end. A truck driver sends us in the direction of the town of Kemerovo, which lies to the east of us. “Why shouldn’t we go to Kemerovo? That way we avoid Tomsk. It’s even a lot shorter. The only small snag is the few mountains. I can’t tell from the map how high they are,” I explain to Tanja, studying our map. “If you say so,” Tanja replies. “Well, let’s stay flexible. Let’s go to Kemerovo,” I decide.

“There’s a rest stop up ahead! Should we go in there to warm up?” I ask 20 kilometers further on. “Absolutely!” Tanja snorts loudly. We can park our bikes in front of the window and keep an eye on them from inside. In other words, brilliant conditions. When we enter the small wooden hut, it is pleasantly warm. We immediately feel at home. We have a ravenous appetite. Unfortunately, even here in Siberia, all food is heated up in the microwave. Based on our research, we now know how dangerous such wave-warmed food is. We have even learned that the blood count has been shown to change for a short time after a single intake of a microwave meal. That’s why Tanja has worked on her Russian to make the women in the kitchen understand that they can’t tolerate such meals. “Please reheat on the gas or electric hob. My husband and I are allergic to microwaves,” she explains to the women and, lo and behold, it works. Finally, we enjoy another unbroken borscht and two portions of unbroken blinis (pancakes) each. “Otschin wkusna”, (Very tasty)”, we praise the women, who are genuinely happy about it. We are just about to leave when a guest who had just gone outside re-enters the room. “Where are they going?” he asks abruptly. “To Irkutsk.” “Via Kemerovo?” “Yes.” “That’s not good. There are a lot of high mountains on this route. I advise you to take the route via Tomsk. It’s a bit further but much easier. I know what I’m talking about. I’m a truck driver,” he explains. Tanja and I look at each other in surprise. Was this man sent from heaven? “Thank you very much,” I say and shake the man’s hand. “You’re welcome. I wish you a safe and pleasant journey,” he replies, goes outside and climbs into the driver’s cab of his large truck.

We reach the village of Bolotnoye, the place where the civil servant recommended the Gastinitsa yesterday. Although we have only covered 65 kilometers today, we decide to take an early break. It’s our wedding anniversary and we want to celebrate it with a good meal and some peace and quiet. I enter the simple hut with confidence. “No, we don’t have a room available,” I hear and don’t think I understand. “I don’t need two rooms. One is perfectly adequate,” I reply. “I’m sorry. We don’t have a room available,” says the woman again. “Where is the nearest accommodation?” “In the town of Jurga, about 40 minutes by car from here,” she explains. “40 minutes by car? How many kilometers is that?” “I don’t know,” she says. I stand there a little bewildered and wonder what we should do now. Even if I explained to her that it was her wedding anniversary, no room would be available. “Thank you,” I reply and step outside again. My close look at the map tells me that I only have 41 kilometers to go to the announced town. “Shall we do that today?” I ask Tanja. “We can do it,” she says confidently.

At first the master blows us along well, then the road turns north towards Tomsk. The thermometer on our handlebars is at eight degrees. The north wind blows ice-cold against us. Cold drizzle, which already feels like snow, blows in our faces. My knee is once again making itself felt and my coccyx is complaining incessantly. Tanja has neck pain. Nevertheless, we defy the cold wind and the dreadful weather kilometer after kilometer. The thought of having a hot shower and a good meal today gives us energy.

Our speedometer shows 102 kilometers per day as the sign for Jurga beckons with only two kilometers. With a speedometer reading of 105 kilometers, we reach a petrol station on the outskirts of the city. “Where is there a gastiniza here?” I ask the woman at the petrol station counter. “Oh, that’s a long way. You have to go to the center.” “How far?” “Another five kilometers,” I hear. With a speedometer reading of 112 kilometers, I ask a young man. This stretch is flooded by rain. They can’t get through. You have to turn around and drive around the outside,” his sobering statement shocks me. If we were here in the wilderness, we would be pitching our wet tent by now at the latest, but here in the city it’s out of the question. We pass terrible industrial plants again. A surprising number of vehicles disappear under a small, inconspicuous tunnel. “Is this the way to the center?” I ask Tanja. “It doesn’t look like it. You’d better ask before we have to take another detour.” “Yes, that’s the way to the center. Always follow the road, up the hill, down again, then zigzag. It’s best to ask there again,” says a man in his big four-wheel drive vehicle. We follow his explanation. The sun is already low and illuminates the ghostly-looking factories we pass. The air bites your nose and burns your lungs. Monstrous old pipes are wrapped in insulating material. In many places the insulation is hanging down or has burst open. Some pipes have a disgusting dark yellow layer around them. It throws bubbles and looks very poisonous even from a distance. Some of the pipes a few meters next to us are leaking. Hot steam hisses out and we could once again believe we are the protagonists of an environmental thriller. We hold our breath for as long as we can. But then we have to supply our body with the air it needs to survive. We pant past, ask the people who always live here for directions and, after 120.04 kilometers per day, end up in front of an Eastern Bloc bunker in the “Extra Ugly” class.

“Yes, we have a room says the lady at 21:00 in the evening as the clocks here have been put forward by another hour. While I check the rooms and the storage facilities for our bikes, Tanja freezes outside in the dark. I hurry as best I can. Then we carry all our belongings into the warm interior of the hotel. Thank goodness the elevator works. We move into our room on the fifth floor for 1,200 roubles (35 euros). Although today is our wedding anniversary and we’ve been looking forward to the hot shower all day, we don’t get our wish. The water leaves the pipe ice cold. Apparently too many guests wanted to take hot showers today and the old system is not up to the task.

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