Going Home
BJ's obviously been awake and pulled the balcony door to, it's about 6am
and I just have to open it as I'm starting to melt again. Pytaigorsk starts to
wake up beneath us, but the cockrel is a bit on the slow side, it's well after
dawn and the stupid bird has only just started crowing. We start slowly as it's
going to be a very long day. At breakfast we ponder who ever would put cabbage
in a brioche? Or for that matter potato? Unfortunately they only have green
tea, oh for a proper cup of tea, starting the longing just to be home now, to
put it all back as it was. After a couple of visits to the buffet we give up
and collect our bags from our timber clad box, look finally out across the city
to the mountain that brought us here, below us is Andrei and his dodgy jeep
that'll be taking us to the airport.
The weirdness that is Russia begins again.
At the airport check-in desk is a group of Russian school kids who are either
completely intrigued by us or are busy ripping the piss out of us without us realising. The best we can come up with is to return the
compliment, we take the piss out of the children, ah! the joy of innocence due
to the lack of an understanding of each others’ language. We step up next. BJ's
bag just makes 20kg, then a guy steps across and demands that he put his day
sack on as well!!! Muzafuka! It now goes 24kgs, "You pay excess for 4kgs -
60R/kg" we argue the toss that it's only what we arrived with, but he
won't budge. He hands BJ a coupon and sends him to a desk in the front corner
of the hall to pay. Then it's my turn, big bag on, 18kgs!! Wooohooo! Noooo, I
have to put my pack on too! Shit!! 26kgs. I turn to him and say "OK I'll
change into my big boots" and start to pull them out of my bag, as I do so
he relents and says that he'll only charge me 4kgs too, just to get rid of me
and the ever impatiently growing queue behind me. HAHA! The downside is that we
can't dodge paying as he has kept our passports, he's been here before. After
some fruitless wandering we eventually find the correct desk to pay. The girl
there speaks no English and attempts to charge BJ 1140r, we guess that she's
trying to charge him as 24kgs over. Another round of bartering ensues, we write
down 60R x 4kgs = 240R but she counters with 390R, BJ takes it and figures
she's just made and easy 150R, about three quid. Before she has chance to pull
the same stroke with me I point out the difference on my ticket, ARSE! she's
charged me 390R too! Back across to the ticket desk to retrieve our passports,
indignantly he returns them and points us around to the customs desk. BJ goes
through one desk and I dodge round to another, the race is on. Trouble with
ticket, that's checked and is ok, then through the scanner, it goes off, crap!
but I get patted down by a rather hot looking lady official (not all bad) but there's
a problem with my bag! What? She says
that something's wrong, "Is it the flask?" No? Another, sterner
looking lady points to the image of a knife on the banned items poster. BJ
figures it must be my Leatherman, f**k! I don't want to lose that. I start
pulling all the crap out of my bag, big boots, fleece, ooops skanky boxers,
shorts and . . . they tell me to go, but are, according to BJ, laughing at all
the kit I have dragged out. Still we're through. In to a waiting area and in the corner a
small snack stand, so it's caviar and Earl Grey while we wait for the flight.
Not too shabby! The flight is steaming, no AC on this plane either.
We're in
Moscow again before we know it, no traumas. Hunt the bags, grab a trolley and
dive through to International Departures, a quick stop at instant tickets and
straight to the check-in desk, hhmmm the bags?, again no traumas! Upstairs and
through more searches, what are they expecting to happen around here? A quick
dive through duty free, a bite to eat and then down to the gate (which they
seem to change with great frequency). Next door is a Fosters bar so we grab our
last Russian beer and try to get a discount because of my surname, which causes
laughs with the staff but alas not a saving. Through the gate and out on to the
plane, now this is a classy craft, leather seats, loads of space and we're
getting fed, can't be bad, oh! and DVD screens on the back of the seats (am I
missing the Tupolevs? Nah). The front
page of the English news papers show the devastation of riots throughout the
UK? What has been happening since we've been away, it hasn't been that long.
The food's good, we're having fun with the stewardesses and we're going home!
But Elbrus hasn’t seen the last of us, that mountain owes us a summit picture
so we'll see you back here in 2012.
E-Bob signs off!
Oh and BJ says "seeya!"
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