Day 13. 1 August 2011
I woke up and felt really good. Got the bike ready and set off. Going out of Elista there was a lot of wind, and I was a bit restless, so I rode it hard. I had planned a route on my notebook, and unfortunately I didn’t see that the GPS calculated a different route, so very quickly I was out in the countryside, without any houses or villages. I knew pretty quickly that I was not going the quickest way as there where no truck and the road was in bad shape. But who cares, its part of the adventure;-) After only 80 km the fuel light came on... Ups, no villages in sight, but I continued. Doing only 80 km on 10L meant that I was doing 8km/l, not a lot. I still had about 5 liter of gas left, so that would be between 40 and 75 km. I dropped the speed to about 70km/h to save fuel. After 30 km and still no gas stations or villages in sight I was getting worried. Then there came a sign with a gaspump on it only problem was that it said there was 64 km to next gas station! I pulled over at a busstop and demounted my Rotopax gastank and poured the 4 liters in the tank. That gave me another 60 km in normal conditions. I was a bit worried as signs in Russia is not always that reliably, and the gas station could be closed, and then I would be without gas.
I was very relived when I saw a small village in the horizon, and even more relived when I spotted a open gas station at the entrance to the village. I filled everything up again. Then I rode through the small village and discovered no less than 4 gas stations in the small village, maybe the should space them out a bit?
I continued in the heat, it was about 35 degrees Celsius. I wanted to get to Krasnodar, so I could get into Ukraine the next day. The heat was really getting to me, and the sweat was running of me. As I was arriving late in the afternoon I didn’t see a point in getting a expensive hotel, so I found the cheapest I could. I parked outside and went in. The lady in the reception spoke no english at all. But I figured out the price, and that was cheap, and that they didn’t want the hassle with the paperwork for foreigners. All foreigners in Russia has to get a piece of paper from all hotels you sleep at, and the have to report it to the central administration. I had receipts from all my other hotels so one missing wouldn’t be a problem. She then called a man that would show me the room. But apparently the hotel, with the cheap price was not the one I was standing in, because we went out the door and around the corner and through a door, up some stairs two floors. There was a women with the keys, and she then showed me up two more floors and down a long hall, and there was my room. It was very russian, but cheap so I took it.
Then I went down all the stairs to pick up all my stuff from the bike, and carried it up, when I was finished I was sweating and the heat inside was nearly unbearable. There was no aircondition and no wind outside, so opening the window didn’t help. I took a wet towel and draped that around my shoulders to cool of a bit. It was a very hot, long, sweaty night with lousy sleep. I got up at 5 o’clock to move on. It was cheap, but not worth having a terrible afternoon and sleepless night because of the heat.
Filling up in the shade of a busstop.
Dirty and very hot, but nice break in the shade.
The Hotel
My hotel room.
I never got to finish the story, but i made it back to Denmark.