With any achievement there needs to be a suitable celebration. So it was back to Cheget Village for a dinner celebration at a local cafe. Along with local dishes were copious bottles of vodka, so we were able to celebrate in true Russian style long into the night. For some, this resulted in sore heads as a the vodka was just too cheap to pass up, plus we had 60 Euro spare from our Slovenian friends!
The following morning (Thursday) we decided we would leave Azau a day early and head back to Moscow so that we could spend more time looking at the local sights. How naive were we to think that that it would be easy to change our flights, accommodation and transfer once we got to the airport! Along with Mike's problems with the local police because he didn't have all his paperwork in order, Aeroflot wouldn't change our ticket unless we went to their ticketing office in town, something we didn't have enough time to do before the flight left. So we opted to purchase a new ticket with the local KMV (Kavmineralvodyavia) airline which proved to be the most nerve racking two hours of flying any of us have ever experienced. You couldn't talk over the engines because they were so loud and the air conditioning didn't work pr
operly - "it will come on after takoff" was the response from the hostess. Note the emergency exit in the back row next to Mike, complete with safety slide in the black box! We were on an old Tupolov TU154B2 which according to Planephotos.net "KMV is one of the few airlines still running this model". We also discovered that KMV are banned from flying to the EU due to the safety record - yes, we are still alive and the photo is of the plane on the tarmac at Moscow just to prove it! After another two hours in Moscow traffic we arrived at our hostel nearly 12 hours after leaving Azau - what a day!
The following morning (Thursday) we decided we would leave Azau a day early and head back to Moscow so that we could spend more time looking at the local sights. How naive were we to think that that it would be easy to change our flights, accommodation and transfer once we got to the airport! Along with Mike's problems with the local police because he didn't have all his paperwork in order, Aeroflot wouldn't change our ticket unless we went to their ticketing office in town, something we didn't have enough time to do before the flight left. So we opted to purchase a new ticket with the local KMV (Kavmineralvodyavia) airline which proved to be the most nerve racking two hours of flying any of us have ever experienced. You couldn't talk over the engines because they were so loud and the air conditioning didn't work pr
operly - "it will come on after takoff" was the response from the hostess. Note the emergency exit in the back row next to Mike, complete with safety slide in the black box! We were on an old Tupolov TU154B2 which according to Planephotos.net "KMV is one of the few airlines still running this model". We also discovered that KMV are banned from flying to the EU due to the safety record - yes, we are still alive and the photo is of the plane on the tarmac at Moscow just to prove it! After another two hours in Moscow traffic we arrived at our hostel nearly 12 hours after leaving Azau - what a day!
Hi Adrian and Heather, thanks for the great stories ad pics, hope you are having a rewarding break. Well done on the climb Adrian, look forward to hearing more abuot it on your return.
ReplyDeleteCheers
Trev