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January 23-25, 2009: Back on track
It was a troublesome start - hopefully now everything bad is covered right from the beginning.
First of all we had to pay almost 1500 ? for our excess luggage at Frankfurt Airport, which should not be the case. Furthermore we became problems with the Russian administration for the first time since the expedition started ? apart from that they always exemplary supported us ? because they confiscated my signal pistol and ammo right at the Domodedovo Airport with the reason that an important document is missing.
Right before our connecting flight was leaving, they let me go ? unfortunately without my signal pistol and ammo. Together with Marco, 240kg luggage, 2 luggage carts, 3 employees of the ? in my opinion - most impolite airline ever ? S7- and 2 police officers, we ran through the corridors, hallways, security checks and over a special entrance to the luggage compartment where additional four helpers were waiting to load our stuff in the last seconds before take off. Afterwards Marco and I stepped inside of the airplane, the doors directly closed and we started.
In Novosibirsk the fight with another employee of the S7 airline continued after 16 hours waiting at the airport, because they charged us another 1000 ? and acted like they where displaying. Again, we barely reached our flight and this time with a special bus for me and Marco. It really suc*** to travel with the S7.
42 hours after leaving Germany it got nicer when in Yakutsk. Serafim perfectly prepared our arrival. We were picked up and already at 6:00 am they opened up their garages for us to store our equipment. Now quickly to the hotel so we can start early enough with the modification and preparation of the vehicles for the hardest track at all. I planned 4-5 days for this.
Ulrich, our photographer is going to be here January 28th, Konstantin from Moscow at the 29th and Kasper from Zurich at the 30th. We are going to meet Evgeny in Ustnera which is about 1000 kilometres away, where he will directly travel to from Magadan?
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