Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'You think they look something like this?' I asked.
I was furious. Why the bloody hell did this have to happen to me? Suddenly,
everything irritated me. Chris's breathing, the crap firewood and the insect-filled
forest. I knew that ticks in Russia were rife with encephalitis and lime disease. How
long had the tick been on me? What were the symptoms of tick-borne disease?
Worst of all was the thought of revisiting a Russian hospital.
I awoke early in the morning and lay still until the light revealed gaping holes
in our
loue
shelter. They must have been freshly burnt by the spitting spruce fire.
As I cursed everything under the sun, a peg loosened and the shelter drooped down
onto my face.
There was no point in panicking. We washed in a stream and prepared to spend
a day in the large town of Glazov, only fifty kilometres away.
The town came into view just as the road disintegrated into roughly laid slabs
of concrete. Smokestacks and apartment blocks rose above the treeline. Derelict
buildings with broken windows lined the road closer to the centre. Piles of garbage
had been dumped clear of the residential quarter, forming a charming decoration.
After following vague directions towards the city centre we parked our bikes
on the street. As we stepped off the bikes, a short middle-aged man pulled up on
a small collapsible bicycle. He had short silvery-grey hair and a subtle moustache
that blended almost without trace into his pale, drawn face. He wore an old but
clean shirt buttoned up to the neck. His name was Mikhail. 'Wow, look at this
thing,' he said, eyeing the recumbent. His eyes darted behind slim-lined spectacles.
He looked remarkably like a mouse.
We quickly got through the rigmarole of explaining every oddity of the bike,
ourselves and about our travels. Then I explained the tick situation.
'I can show you how to get to the hospital if you want,' he offered.
In a second his wiry legs were whizzing around in a blur of speed. A small dust
cloud trailed behind his bike and the old cane basket on the back rattled furiously.
Locals on bikes always seemed to conclude that because we were long-distance
travellers, we were also incredibly fast.
It wasn't long before I was trailing behind, squinting to see which streets Chris
and Mikhail were taking. I watched Mikhail's short skinny arms shoot out to in-
dicate direction. With just one hand on the handlebars he almost wobbled out of
control before veering out of sight. Inevitably, I lost them. My legs felt like swollen
water balloons and I was puffing heavily when I finally spotted them outside the
hospital.
