Death & Love

Our introduction to the motorcycles now complete, we made our way to the Ural factory museum where a truly splendid collection of antique motorcycles was on display. The entire history of Urals was there, right back to its origins with a BMW R12. What was perhaps most interesting was how little the basic model changed in 60 years. It wasn't a big surprise given Russia's history of central planning and lack of investment in basic research, but it's easy to see how this manifest lack of progress helped sow the seeds of the Soviet Union's ultimate self-destruction.

That afternoon we took in a local ice hockey game. The Russians are as serious about hockey as the Canadians and that's saying something. We watched a local league match and the entire town seemed to be at the stadium with us. Among the spectators was Irbit's mayor and Sergey the fixer from the Ural factory. Behind us dozens of young kids were playing matches on the six other natural rinks.

Back at the hotel the official briefing was getting underway and was to be taken seriously. Olly, the Adventurists' own professional stunt man, had participated in the inaugural Ice Run in 2012 and learned a number of lessons that he was was hoping would scare us sensible. It was working. We learned that there were two routes north to the ice roads. The easy one was along clearly sign-posted, paved roads that were well maintained. Riders headed that way would most likely only have to deal with the cold and the generally obstinate unreliability of the motorcycles. However, there was an alternative. A route that, if memory serves me, Olly described as an uncharted avenue to certain death. At least that was his experience when last year he and three teammates got stuck deep in the woods, all the while believing they were heading in the right direction. Their road out of the town of Tavda narrowed gradually until it became a single track as they entered a forest, where they promptly bogged down in deep snow. For 48 hours in biting cold weather the four men muscled their Urals along a total of 40 kilometers. Eventually a group of local hunters found them quite by accident and with their four wheel drive truck dragged them back to safety and gave them directions. In so many words Olly reiterated the Adventurists' prime directive: "On the Ice Run you will be completely responsible for your own safety. If you get into a difficult situation, you will have to get yourself out of it." He then gave us advice on driving: 'ruts are sluts', frostbite: 'check each other to make sure you don't have any exposed skin', drinking alcohol in the cold weather: 'don't', and the mechanical condition of the bikes, 'so much better than last year!'

Sufficiently sobered up by the end of Olly's talk, we all headed back to the bar for dinner and drinks to take the edge off our nerves again. There Zaya and I sat and made smalltalk with Geordie, an Aussie from Sydney on his first big winter adventure. With his neatly trimmed beard, Geordie looked for all the world like Czar Nicholas II. Zaya was quite taken with him, that much was obvious, and it would be hard to believe he wasn't interested in her. 

Skating Away on the Thin Ice of a New Day

- This shouldn't be all that hard, after all we did the Mototaxi Junket and survived that.
- Can we take Eric's motorcycle from last year? He said all the mechanics were rebuilt and aside from the electrics it's in pretty good shape.
- Let's see, the cheat sheet says her name is Eva and that she was pulled out of a ditch last year by a tank. I saw that on Eric's video, that was pretty funny.
- Let's roll her out of the garage and try getting her started.
- There's a trick to this kickstarting. Ok, turn her over and get the cylinders aligned so that you get the maximum throw, got it. It's that flick the Russians all seem to know how to do. The flick at the end of the kick.
- Yeah, yeah, you have a go. Ok - dammit, that started her up. I'll drive first and get her round the corner. It would be embarrassing to have to be pushed at this point.
- Ice, snow, brakes. Don't need a front brake - really a total waste of time. Logically, he's right. Wheel lock up on ice and besides I can slow down with the engine. We will need to drive incredibly defensively. Just like we did in Peru, maybe more so.
- Ease off on the clutch and whoa! A hard right, clutch in, easier on the throttle, easier. Ok, that's better. Forward motion is a good thing. I'm going to die out there. I know it.
- It's like being on the set of Schindler's List or Indiana Jones, or something.
- Right turn ahead - watch out for right turns because you may tip. Crap! The damn thing wants to roll over. Ok, Ok, slowly around the corner, now. I'm a wuss!
- Sh*t, there's a truck and a car and deep snow, just follow the other guys, not so bad, not so bad, okay, uh-oh, truck from my left, he's a big bastard. Wheee! Little wheel spin there and we're around! Just don't make me stop. Don't for God's sake make me stop!
- We need to go back the other way to practice lefthand turns. It's time Zaya had a go.
- Not too bad, not too bad, but the rear brake doesn't seem to work. Could you check it and make sure it's not operator error?
- A donut at the entrance - very nice. Oh, the folly of youth! Yeah, yeah, that's what I figured, brake's fine, it's the operator.
- We're on our way! Holy crap, we're on our way!

A Couple of Pricks

During our overnight stay in Yekaterinburg, Zaya admitted that she'd been to see the doctor in Ulaanbaatar for a chest infection. With my medical background I'm leery of anyone that says they're sick and about to embrace an adventure that might kill a healthy ox. So when Zaya asked if I'd be comfortable helping her with her treatment regime I cautiously said yes. At that moment she reached into her vast bag and pulled out dozens of glass ampoules of cephalosporin, lignocaine, normal saline and gentamicin sulphate, along with syringes and needles by the score. My immediate thought was "Crikey! This woman needs to be in Intensive Care, not about to hop on a motorcycle for two weeks." The idea of injecting Zaya with massive quantities of antibiotics in freezing conditions every eight hours held little appeal for either of us. Even teaching Zaya to dose herself didn't seem in any way practical. I'd brought a bunch of Z-Pak, a modern kills-it-all wonder drug, and gave them to her as cover. Since she said she felt fine, I suggested that she hold off on the injections until she got home, but keep the other meds with her just in case. Because being sick in Siberia is nothing to sneeze at (sorry about that - ed.). 

Irbit is one of those towns that is hard to place in time. Its historical, pre-communist wealth is plainly visible in the handsome old brick buildings which line the streets. The city clearly avoided most of the ghastly destruction brought about by the Second World War and the ensuing Soviet concrete block rebuilding. In the warm light of the sunset we could still make out traditional wall decorations blending in with the fading patinas of once brightly colored stucco. Scattered around town are some impressively dilapidated log houses that look like they go back even further in time. There is something cozy about the place.

We arrived at the Hotel Povorot on Friday evening just in time for a warm up vodka slinging and arm wrestling session with the local Russian muscle. Fully embracing her new antibiotic regime, Zaya kicked things off by doing shots with Adrian and Sergei and then mysteriously vanished. One minute she was there, the next she was gone.

The Povorot has an interesting set up in their bedrooms. The outer door to the hallway can be locked with a key, but there is also an inner door that can be locked only by hand from inside the room. Access to the toilet and separate shower lay in the wide vestibule between the two doors. In her stupor Zaya had made her way back to her room and subconsciously locked the inner door thus locking me out of my much needed bed. Banging on the door, calling out, phoning, and otherwise raising hell proved fruitless. Zaya slept on. Not sure what else to do, I lay down in the vestibule and slept briefly until a paralytically drunk Russian crashed in and started bashing on the inner door just above my head. Drunk as he was, he only looked down and saw me when I told him to, "f*** off you prick!" At which point instead of crushing my windpipe with his boot, he turned around and staggered out into the corridor. Jet-lag and vodka overwhelmed me and I reasoned that at some point Zaya had to wake up, so I slept for few more hours on the floor.

A View From the Bus Towards Irbit

Aeroflot's one bag rule was my introduction to Russia's general hatred of luggage. The next time I found it was getting on the bus in Yekaterinburg that was heading downtown from the airport. Stern-looking and solidly built as she was, I was in no position to argue with the conductress whether my bags were really the size of another two passengers so I  paid the $1.00 fare difference. 

Tall, with dark, tousled hair, horn-rimmed glasses and a geek's good looks, Oleg is a friend of Zaya's friend Elena. At 22, in addition to being a millennial, Oleg is part of the first post-communist generation. He says he still remembers communism, but, I asked him, will your children? Everything around us, from the McDonald's to the Citroen dealerships tells me Soviet style communism will simply fade as quickly as the generations will forget. Oleg was kind enough to let us stay the night in his tiny student apartment where he and Zaya and a couple of friends partied as I slept off my jet lag.

My next anti-baggage encounter was boarding the bus to Irbit the next day. The ticket inspector swore up and down that the bags of any kind were a violation of bus ordinances and that we should be summarily shot for suggesting there was room in the empty luggage compartment to stow them. Oleg entered into a shouting match with the inspector and eventually won the day. The bus started to fill up so we said our goodbyes and I made my way to the very back where I took a seat next to the window. 

Honestly, I'm not really sure where the border of Siberia is, but it seems to start east of the Ural Mountains and ends in the Pacific Ocean. The air is clear and bright as the countryside rolls by. Stands of silver birch with their black and white trunks are the only thing breaking up the wide, flat plains of snow. 

Now, I am in the Midwest. It's Wisconsin out there. From the farms to the fields it's very familiar and harkens back to my boyhood in Illinois. At 5:15PM the sun is still bright with a late afternoon's feel. Snow is a palette on which light plays. Right now it's alternately watery blue in the shadows and yellowy pink in the sunny spots, perhaps with a hint of abutilon, anything but white. Long shadows at a 45-degree angle indicate our easterly direction, which is as it should be. 

Welcome to Russia!

To Build a Fire is a short story by Jack London that describes an arrogant man's walk from one trading post to the next in the dead of a winter along the Yukon Trail. London is unsympathetic to his central character, as unsympathetic as nature is. At the start of the story an old timer warns the man, if it's fifty below, don't venture out without a partner - better yet don't go out at all. Even the man's dog knew better, but the man goes anyway. And dies.

Not much has changed in the hundred years since that story was written. Caution in the frozen north pays rewards and success goes to those that are prepared and respectful of nature and her awesome abilities. It's been said that nature has nothing to fear from man and that when it is time she will reclaim her birthright. When she does, we humans shall sit down and we shall sleep the most comfortable and satisfying sleep ever known. I digress.

The art of over-preparation and overpacking for these adventures has its consequences. Having frequent flyer status on Delta allows me to carry two bags for free. Aeroflot, a Delta Sky Team partner airline, could apparently give a toss and told me I could only check one bag, the other one I'd have to pay a surcharge for. The pretty brunette counter agent looked at me with solicitude, but made a lackluster shrug that said, "Really, I can't do anything. Decisions need running up the management chain and if the manager won't return my call then, gosh, comrade there's really nothing I can do. You will just have to wait." Initiative, I realized at that moment, relies on trusting people to do the right thing without supervision. Trust is still in short supply in Russia. It will take a couple more generations before the double double checks become the exception rather than the norm.

Eventually I was directed upstairs where I talked with a ticket agent who said the same thing, that my fare allowed only one checked bag. She then sent me over to the check-in clerk who momentarily gave me a little hope that I might get away with it. No such luck. The mousey agent's fearsome middle aged supervisor said 'Nyet!' and I was sent packing to the excess baggage desk manned by the most ferocious looking woman yet. She hit me up for a $70 surcharge and made me feel like I was lucky not to have been arrested as well. 

Cutting back into the boarding pass line I heard someone behind me calling my name, "Mike! Mike!" It was Zaya, my traveling partner for this trip. At the last minute she had decided to abandon her original plan of taking the Trans Siberian Railway from her home town of Ulan Baatar in Mongolia and flew instead. We hadn't seen each other or spoken since we parted ways in Peru four months earlier. After we checked in we spent some time catching up. Zaya is in her heart a romantic, even if she is unsure if she will ever fall truly in love. She wasn't having much success in that department, but was happy to know that I'd gotten engaged almost as soon as I returned home from Peru. I had a feeling her luck was about to change and that someone would sweep her off her feet - if they could only keep up with her.

Siberia Calls!

Itchy feet is a chronic condition in my family, and I'm not talking about the athlete's kind. We are in varying degrees a band of wanderers, seekers of adventure with a commonly held curiosity about the world and other people (some would simply call us nosey). My particular strain of this affliction was passed on to me by my grandmother. From when I was about the age of eight we would sit together on the sofa and she would show me photos and tell me stories of her travels to South America and the Far East, all the while inspiring my wanderlust. Whether she would have approved of the idea of driving a 30-year-old Soviet motorcycle from bumf**k nowhere in central Russia 1,800 kilometers northwards to bumf**k nowhere on the Arctic Circle, is impossible to know. But I think she would have appreciated the spirit of the idea.

The Institute of Adventure Research came up with the idea of taking a classic Ural motorcycle and sidecar from Irbit to Salekhard along the zimniks, or ice roads, a couple of years ago. As soon as I heard about the trip I knew immediately I wanted to go on it. My colleague Brendan asked me the other day how many people were planning on going on this journey with me, and I said I thought about 20. To which he replied, "That's probably the entire global population that would have any interest in doing it." I think he’s probably right.

Who is the typical Ice Runner? Well, as you might expect, the group is 90% male, early 30’s on average and damned good looking. A little unexpectedly, 60% of them are Australian, with a large contingent from Perth. Quite why these young men want to leave God’s own paradise at the height of summer and test their mettle in the maw of Russia’s winter it not completely clear. I asked several of them and they said simply, “…to have a go, eh?” Isn’t that what life’s about? Having a go? My grandmother thought so. So do I. 

Ice Run 2013

Red Thread is off to the chilly, frozen bits of Russia in an attempt to drive 2,500km across the Siberian wilderness on an old Ural motorcycle with sidecar. The goal is to drive from Irbit, the home of the Ural, to the only town in the world sitting on the Arctic Circle: Salekhard. We will join 11 other foolhardy teams complete the adventure. Last year folks endured -50C weather, broken motorcycles, wild dogs and drunken locals. This year should be even better.

Red Thread Adventures is about two things, helping those in need and making the world a more interesting place. We raise money for our chosen causes as well as donating our time and expenses to undertake global challenges and inspire others to do the same. For this adventure we are raising funds for our favorite charity, Half the Sky Foundation. There are thousands of kids that benefit from Half the Sky's excellent programs. Please click the donate button on the left or click on the motorcycle on the right and give what you can.

Finishing's Cool!

Anta, about 1pm and 25 kilometres west of Cusco was the point at which we said goodbye to Fritz with many thanks for all his hospitality and gracious guiding across the Andes. He’d dropped us at the local mototaxi repair shop where things were in a reassuring state of disarray. It was the usual set-up, one guy who knew what he was doing and the rest observing and offering useless advice. The sun beat down through an everlasting dark blue sky. As we explained the symptoms as best we could as our mechanic began the lengthy process of dismantling the engine. Lengthy, because like all the other mechanics we’d dealt with, he divided his time between every job serially; each project getting a few minutes of attention, interrupted by anyone passing by with something new to fix. Eventually, the parts lay before him, the shredded drive gear had blown teeth all through transmission, and he told Zaya that there was no way he could fix the bike until the next morning. “But we need to be in Urubamba by six, tonight!”, Zaya said. They went back and forth until he eventually couldn't resist Zaya any longer and agreed to get it done if he could. He did. By 4:30 that afternoon we were being led out of Anta by a complete stranger and directed along the back roads and the shortcut to Urubamba. Mid-afternoon had turned a little wild, rain and wind, but by early evening the sun began a long golden decline.

We drove alongside Lake Huaypo and some of the most beautiful scenery of the trip. The snow crested mountains away in the distance reflected on the lake, disturbed only by a cool wind. Little did we know that 20 years ago Lake Huaypo was the scene of a mysterious UFO sighting. Two young boys were out hunting frogs when the lake turned into a seething cauldron out of which shot a jet-propelled air mattress. One of the boys was knocked over by the bizarre machine and suffered severe injuries which almost killed him. But that was then and now all we wanted was to get onto the main road and reach the finish line before it got dark and some idiot in a truck ran us down.

The Adventurists’ Department of Crap Maps had outdone itself, but we found the restaurant and our colleagues anyway. It was great to actually drive across the finish line and greet the other teams that had made it ahead of us. Stories were swapped, Pisco Sours were drunk and a gigantic buffet consumed. Silly games were organized and serious drinking ensued. In an homage to Burning Man, the Adventurists had commissioned a giant wooden statue of an Inca god and promptly set it alight with a shower of fireworks.

Partying carried on into the wee hours, but at midnight I took a chance and joined Dave and Hobbit as they headed back to their hotel, which, they assured me, had rooms and was extremely well appointed. They were right on both counts. Peru had given us everything we could have wished for, bar one, Machu Picchu. That was to be the ‘icing on the cake’ as Dave later said. My adventures in Peru weren’t finishing with the Mototaxi Junket, just entering the next phase.

I said goodbye to Zaya at the party assuming we’d see each other in the morning. She was heading down to Bolivia or El Salvador before heading back to the USA for her immigration exam, followed by a quick visit to Mongolia for Christmas. At the end of the party, though, she’d joined a group heading for Cusco and we didn’t see each other again. We managed to catch up via the web later and said our farewells more properly and promised to track each other’s future adventures.

One of the things I most enjoy about traveling with Zaya is her open way with people and perhaps more importantly her genuine interest in them. That makes it easy for strangers to help her find her way through the world. For Zaya little things like money, or the myriad of challenges we faced, are simply hurdles to be overcome, not roadblocks or excuses for inaction. 90% of life is turning up, the other 10% is moving on. I’m sure that one day we’ll see the film of Zaya’s travels – if she ever sits still long enough to edit it.

Vicuñas and Junketeers

Climbing quickly we wound our way up to over 4500 meters. Zaya fell asleep and I struggled, between a headache and lack of oxygen, to stay awake. But the high altitude plain was itself a welcome change from the stress of the vertiginous road up. Vicuñas skittishly grazed alongside the highway and were really too cute for words. A relative of the domesticated llama, vicuñas were endangered in the 1960's. With the advent of conservation their numbers have since increased from 6,000 to over 350,000 today. They are prized for their very fine and warm wool. They are also, in my opinion, the prettiest of the Peruvian camelids.

We dropped into Abancay late and halted on a side street near the bus station outside the house of Fritz's extended family - a charming group who plied us with wine and questions. But it was time to rest in a real bed for the night, so we agreed with Fritz to rendezvous at 5:00AM and went in search of a hostel.

The next morning brought us Junketeers! The sun reflected warmly high up the mountain face and blue skies broke through the clouds now and then. Fritz drove us steadily up out of Abancay and I was daydreaming to the local Quechua news when we almost literally bumped into Dylan, Sledge, Dave and Mark. They had traveled together and made it all the way across the country. We shared our tales of mechanical woe and explained why our mototaxi was perched on the back of a lorry and they were collectively sympathetic and a little jealous. This was the last day - Saturday -  and it was the big push for the finish line and the victory party. There was no time to lose.