We thought you might like a little explanation of the reason Duncan and Elliot left Russia early. Here is a brief overview of a hectic, slightly mind-numbing few days…
We arrived back into the city after completing the Kitoy, our plan was to spend 3 days resting up and replenishing our resources before heading out for 12 days to paddle the river Zombolok followed by the Onot. On the third night our initial Russian fixer, Evgeny- who we had parted with due to the cost of his transport - dropped off our stickers, he seemed relieved to see us after the flooding of the Kitoy, we parted on good terms.
The following day we did our food shop, once again a staple diet of lentils, buckwheat and many many snickers. We then received a message from Evgeny, in short he told us that the drivers were suspicious of our requests to find the best price and that no one wanted to work with us, this left us confused as nothing was mentioned in our meeting the previous night.
We spent the rest of the day trying to make sense of the situation. Our initial conclusion was that there was a big cultural difference and whilst we thought ‘shopping around’ for the best price for transport was acceptable, we were told that the drivers expected us to stay with one driver without knowing any prices. We found out later, despite what we had been told that we were still on good terms with the majority of the drivers we were in contact with. We also found out that in order to paddle the river Onot another permit was required, one we did not have and that could take months to get, meaning our original plan was out of the window. We had a few other options of more chilled rivers to do however we calculated that it would cost the same to drive to one river as it would to fly to Nepal, at this stage fueled by exhaustion and cabin fever the team had developed hard feelings about staying in the area. We seriously considered multiple options including heading to Nepal, Austria or Norway, after talks with sponsors, friends and families we took some time out visiting a church allowing individual reflection on our options away from the hostel room we had been cooped up in for days.
A decision was finally made to try and make the most of a bad situation, the team would remain in East Russia and spend our remaining time enjoying the beauty of other multidays the area has to offer, despite feeling disappointed on missing out on the Onot.
Unfortunately Elliot and Duncan were limited by their 30 day visa and the rivers we could now do would take longer than the time they had remaining due to the extra time spent in the city. Russia isn’t exactly the place to be pushing your luck with overstaying a visa and so they headed to the airport. The rest of the team were very sad to see the boys leave early, but glad to see that Scottish summer rains have been providing the goods.
The team have taken a lot away from this situation, including that expeditions don’t always go exactly to plan and that Joe is relentless when it comes to readily available chocolate bars (the team consumed over a hundred in three stressful days which we then had to replace).