Togliatti – Lazarevskoye
1784km over the hot flat endless fields of central Russia. Nothing really outstanding, except for the heat! It was crazy dry and hot. With every hour I was more of a sun-dried tomato than a human.
I thought I deserved a break in Lazarevskoye, at the Black Sea coast. A few days to rehydrate and become more of a human again 😁
Lazarevskoe – Arkhyz
I initially planned to hurry up and ride this stretch in one day but the mountains drowned in rain clouds and we had to quickly find a plan B. So I opted to spend a night in a little town Moskovskoy (which I had never ever heard of). And – thank you universe – the little town has thermal springs ♨️ resorts! What an amazing idea to just float in a hot water pool watching the sunset after a really dusty mountain pass!
Next morning, me and my new Honda Varadero friend continued to Arkhyz. Little did I know how much off-roading was waiting for me!
(God knows what I was expecting when I picked the Varadero travel companion)
Got my confidence tested and pushed the limits of my comfort zone quite a bit crossing a sketchy wooden bridge across a mountain river, then crossing a few streams, then riding through loose soil of construction works, let alone all the rocky gravel paths. Oh my, that was quite scary but a lot of fun!
Took a jeep up to a glacier waterfall, hiked the last few km, watched the sunset on the way back and arrived to a very cold cabin that we had rented, which didn’t even have hot water for shower (the guy who was responsible for the heating got drunk… and, oh well, 💩 happens).
The temperature outside dropped below zero during the night… (check out the icy grass on the photo above).
Arkhyz – Dombay
I’ve been dreaming of seeing the mountains of Dombay since my early childhood, since before I even knew what real mountains looked like. And yet, I imagined myself sitting at a fireplace next to a pair of skis, gazing at the majestic glacier peaks that surround the little town. I was so excited to see if my dream was anywhere close to reality.
Arrived in the afternoon. Took a cable car half-way up the mountain, a few photos, a few wow’s, and the sun started to set, time to go to the hotel, I’ll come back tomorrow, take it all the way up to the top of the mountain. Tomorrow, yes, tomorrow I’ll have time to fully enjoy it.
But on the way back to the hotel I started feeling bad, headache, weakness, nausea, my whole body was in pain. Crawled into my bed, double blanket, so cold, then way too hot, then cold again, longest night ever. The whole next day I got out of bed just a couple of times to force myself to eat some soup.
Luckily I could see a couple of mountain peaks from my hotel window.
Definitely not the way I had imagined my first meeting with Dombay. But oh well, life doesn’t always go according to my plans (or dreams).
Ideally I should’ve stayed a few more days to recover. But the forecast was not looking promising and I decided to try getting out of the mountains while it was still dry and sunny.
Dombay – Elbrus
Packing and loading the luggage was tough. Riding, on the other hand, was quite easy and enjoyable! Life was starting to get better 💛
I had to get away from the mountains, go somewhere warm and lay low for a few days to give my body some rest and time to recover.
After about two hours on the road I saw Elbrus.
It was hard no to notice. Impossible to focus on the road or look somewhere else. Elbrus. 5642m. The highest mountain peak in Europe.
I stopped. I stared. I begged it to let me ride away. Waste of effort. I changed my mind and rode towards the big snow-topped mountain. I simply couldn’t leave visiting it until the next year.
Hello Elbrus. What a pleasure to meet you 💛
Spent one night in the little town of Terskol, took a chairlift up the Cheget mountain to have the best view over Elbrus, stared at the giant for a good hour and headed towards Georgia.
