Arrival in Samara

Day 119 Friday 29^th July 2011  

At the reception computer  the previous night I had tried to book an Azimut hotel in Samara but it had proven unsuccessful because of a software issue (Azimut is the hotel group which owns the Hotel Vladivostok) but I had, at least, managed to salvage the address and it was this that I punched into my Garmin just before we left our wooden house in the woods.    

It had rained during the night and some spots still came down as we packed the bikes. We said our goodbyes at “reception” and hit the main part of Ufa and noticed that we were headed towards a big dark cloud which was kicking out flashes of lightning. It was less that ten minutes before we hit the full force of the raging rainstorm – water was gushing out of the sky and it was possible to see only a few metres ahead. Many cars had stopped at the side of the road and water in some parts was over an inch deep on the asphalt but still we kept going at a steady slow pace. It was a good twenty minutes before we emerged on the other side of the cloud and the rain eased then stopped and a further half hour or so before we hit blue sky and sunshine.

The road, still a main route to Moscow, was again full to bursting with slow, smelly trucks and ample places where police lurked to catch the motorist off guard but we kept within the limits and managed to get by all of these obstructions. The biggest problem for us continued to be the heat. The thermometer on Mark’s bike registered over 40 degrees at one stage and by the time we got to Samara we were cooked. It didn’t help matters that we had arrived (as we usually seem to) during rush hour and the traffic was at walking pace for a good ten kilometres of our journey through the city and our bike temperature gauges hit critical a couple of times – we have to be very wary of this as our machines are air cooled and if they overheat there could be significant problems for us.

The traffic eased as we reached the last half kilometre and then as if somebody had it in for us the way ahead that would lead us directly to our hotel had been closed for roadworks and we had to take a slow detour back into the traffic.

Eventually we found the hotel and it was with trepidation that I arrived at the reception desk and asked the all important question “do you have a room?”. The answer was yes but only a business room which has wifi and air conditioning – HEAVEN !! I booked it for 2 nights and then went back outside to relay the good news to Mark. 

Our Hotel - The Azimut Hotel, Samara

We went straight to the room, put on the air conditioning, dumped our gear and went back downstairs to park our bikes securely in the hotel courtyard at the rear. We got back into the lift and a nice lady squeezed in with us – I felt so embarrassed as we must have been two heaps of sweaty stinking men and she was stuck with us whilst the lift took us to the fourth floor.

We entered our room and in the short time we had been away it had cooled dramatically and we were now very happy sat on our beds in our underpants again ! We showered and went in search of a supermarket where we bought a supply of drinks (some of which had to be alcoholic !) and some goodies to allow us to have a picnic in our room which we did and thoroughly enjoyed our scoff.

A sit down with the computers also revealed that we had passed through yet another time zone but this one knocked off two hours, not one, so we are now only 3 hours ahead of home. Tomorrow we will sit and plan our route for the next week or so – we have quite a few options so we will make our decision after a good night’s sleep.