Russian Journal 2013 - Day 13
Day 13 - Road To Nowhere
Our flight back to Moscow was at around 2.30pm so we had a lazy sleep in and gradually started gathering our possessions together for the journey back.
Having taped everything in sight with his orange tape, we were at last ready to get going. We took a ride to the small Gelendzhik airport, taking in our last views of the town which had been our home for the last 10 days. The unstoppable flow of people to the beach was continuing just as on any other day.
When got into the airport we discovered our plane had been re routed to another airport at Anapa. The reason given was that the winds were to strong to attempt a landing. The upshot if this was that we would have to travel by bus to this airport.
Ira told me that the distance from Gelendzhik to Anapa, Krasnodarskiy kray, Rossiya was around 60 miles. Could be worse I thought. The air company then gave out free portions of kiddie drinks to each passenger as the bus was likely to be hot and my optimism grew that the journey would be short. I mean, little kiddie drinks - can't be far thought I. How wrong I was.
We were called outside in the scorching sun to await the bus that would whisk us away. It was hot. We waited. And waited. And about 20 mins later the bus turned up. A relic from the bygone era of buses. We boarded it and took our seats. The air con didn't really seem to so anything at all, except circulate the already stale air.
About fifteen minutes into out journey we hit a traffic jam. Tailgate to tailgate. Nothing was moving. This was bad. Really bad. There was nothing else to do but sit and slowly lose the will to live.
There were drawn curtains on the bus that kept the sun out of our eyes. Every time I drew them back during the journey we seemed to be passing some kind of building site. Or driving down some country lane in the middle of nowhere.
Our journey started at around 2.00pm and continued on well into the late afternoon. The bus was stuck in traffic for at least two hours before we managed to break free and start to make any progress. We past small villages, fields, and towns and didn't seem to be heading in any particular direction. I was beginning to question the whole story of too much wind in favour of, being hijacked and taken on a magical mystery tour to our deathly end.
We drained our kiddie drinks rations. We sang songs about the Russian revolution, we compared stories about who had been on the worst bus ride ever. And then the silence fell. As everyone willed the driver to find the air field. Come on. There must be a runway around here somewhere?
I peeked through the curtains. Another building site passed through my vision. Was I beginning to hallucinate now? Was this in fact the airport disguised in my mind as a collection of concrete mixers and JCBs?
No. It wasn't. We plod on. Through the middle of someone's dream datcha plantation. By this point we should have all been familiar with one another. Having shared this experience of travel torture together.
But we were still strangers, riding on into the night on our never ending quest to find a plane that could take us back to civilisation.
The lady with the bandage on her leg, the suspicious man who wore a black suit three times to big, and who paced up and down in the airport, travelling with the man in the Hawaiian t-shirt who looked like the guest star of a TV cop show that permanently resided in a late night re-run.
Three hours into a journey that should have taken an hour at most we managed to break free of the traffic. We never found out what caused it. We still had quite a ways to go it turned out though, and didn't arrive at Anapa airport until around 7pm. Over four hours on a bus.
As there were two bus loads of passengers for the flight we had to wait for the other bus to arrive before could board the flight. This meant another wait in the airport of two hours.
Eventually, drained, tired and dazed we boarded the plane to Moscow Domodevodo. Flight time around two hours, we touch down at around 11.30pm, get a taxi to my wife's parents flat, and end our momentous day of travel at about 12.30pm. It's been a bastard of a day.
It seems all are travel plans are jinxed and plagued by problems.
Sleep comes easy for us all this night.
Our flight back to Moscow was at around 2.30pm so we had a lazy sleep in and gradually started gathering our possessions together for the journey back.
Having taped everything in sight with his orange tape, we were at last ready to get going. We took a ride to the small Gelendzhik airport, taking in our last views of the town which had been our home for the last 10 days. The unstoppable flow of people to the beach was continuing just as on any other day.
When got into the airport we discovered our plane had been re routed to another airport at Anapa. The reason given was that the winds were to strong to attempt a landing. The upshot if this was that we would have to travel by bus to this airport.
Ira told me that the distance from Gelendzhik to Anapa, Krasnodarskiy kray, Rossiya was around 60 miles. Could be worse I thought. The air company then gave out free portions of kiddie drinks to each passenger as the bus was likely to be hot and my optimism grew that the journey would be short. I mean, little kiddie drinks - can't be far thought I. How wrong I was.
We were called outside in the scorching sun to await the bus that would whisk us away. It was hot. We waited. And waited. And about 20 mins later the bus turned up. A relic from the bygone era of buses. We boarded it and took our seats. The air con didn't really seem to so anything at all, except circulate the already stale air.
About fifteen minutes into out journey we hit a traffic jam. Tailgate to tailgate. Nothing was moving. This was bad. Really bad. There was nothing else to do but sit and slowly lose the will to live.
There were drawn curtains on the bus that kept the sun out of our eyes. Every time I drew them back during the journey we seemed to be passing some kind of building site. Or driving down some country lane in the middle of nowhere.
Our journey started at around 2.00pm and continued on well into the late afternoon. The bus was stuck in traffic for at least two hours before we managed to break free and start to make any progress. We past small villages, fields, and towns and didn't seem to be heading in any particular direction. I was beginning to question the whole story of too much wind in favour of, being hijacked and taken on a magical mystery tour to our deathly end.
We drained our kiddie drinks rations. We sang songs about the Russian revolution, we compared stories about who had been on the worst bus ride ever. And then the silence fell. As everyone willed the driver to find the air field. Come on. There must be a runway around here somewhere?
I peeked through the curtains. Another building site passed through my vision. Was I beginning to hallucinate now? Was this in fact the airport disguised in my mind as a collection of concrete mixers and JCBs?
No. It wasn't. We plod on. Through the middle of someone's dream datcha plantation. By this point we should have all been familiar with one another. Having shared this experience of travel torture together.
But we were still strangers, riding on into the night on our never ending quest to find a plane that could take us back to civilisation.
The lady with the bandage on her leg, the suspicious man who wore a black suit three times to big, and who paced up and down in the airport, travelling with the man in the Hawaiian t-shirt who looked like the guest star of a TV cop show that permanently resided in a late night re-run.
Three hours into a journey that should have taken an hour at most we managed to break free of the traffic. We never found out what caused it. We still had quite a ways to go it turned out though, and didn't arrive at Anapa airport until around 7pm. Over four hours on a bus.
As there were two bus loads of passengers for the flight we had to wait for the other bus to arrive before could board the flight. This meant another wait in the airport of two hours.
Eventually, drained, tired and dazed we boarded the plane to Moscow Domodevodo. Flight time around two hours, we touch down at around 11.30pm, get a taxi to my wife's parents flat, and end our momentous day of travel at about 12.30pm. It's been a bastard of a day.
It seems all are travel plans are jinxed and plagued by problems.
Sleep comes easy for us all this night.
posted by Nic Treadwell at 12:31 am
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