day 21-24, Kazan - Ust Katav

Day 21, 100 km and a lift another100 km

Next day I started early and passed some more beautiful tributes to the Kama river.

When i stopped for lunch break I already had ridden almost 100 km. 

At the same time a mobile crane stopped at the same place. 

The driver, a small man in my age (he also was tartar) had got a flat tire. I asked if I could help him and he let me do some things although he was very skilled and certainly could have done everything by himself. A wheel is very heavy but he had tools for everything. Amongst other a big home meda slag hammer which he called "a Russian key".

Afterwards he shared his food with me (dry bread with sausage) 

and then he asked me if wanted to get a ride to the next town.  I felt saver inside a truck than on the road, so I agreed. He told me that his vehicle already was 25 years old and that he had been working with it for 20 years, but now he had some problems with the cooling system. He could only drive about 30-50 km/h. Sometimes he had to stop to let the engine cool down. It took a long time to go that 100 km but it was twice as fast than my bicycle.

In the evening we came to Elabuga  and he dropped me off. I decided to take the southern way (not to Perm and Ekatrineburg) and rode to a city called Neberzhnye Chelny. It was beginning to rain when I passed a Motel. I thought since it was Midsummer Eve in Sweden I could celebrate it by sleeping inside a house.

I checked in, washed all my clothes, took a shower and slept heavily.

Day 22, 120 km and a lift for 180 km

It was a good day. Although the northern wind was stronger than before I made many kilometres (because I had slept properly?). The road M-5 counts every kilometre from Moscow. Here I take a short brake at km 1111.

At noon I stopped at a café and ate some lunch. There are cafés at every gas station and there are gas stations about every 20th kilometre along the main-road. At all gas stations there work many people and have a lot of time to chat. 

As many times before the crew asked me curiously where I came from and where I was going to. 

A young guy called Tartari (even he was a Tartar)and his colleague really wanted to know why I was doing this trip. Tartari understood my intentions but looked at my laughing and said "crazy man!" Afterwords he fixed some free pirogues for me!

I the afternoon at half passed 3 pm I had ridden 120 km and stopped again at a gas station. There I found clean toilets! (In Russia almost all toilets only have a hole in the floor)

When I was leaving the station, a truck driver called Sascha heard that I told some curious crew that I wanted to come to Ufa next evening. Sascha said if I joined him I already could come there tonight. I accepted because the road was very narrow and the traffic very intense.

 We arrived there late at night and it was really difficult for me to find a good place for my tent in the dark.

Finally I found a very bad place close to the road. Can you see my tent under the big pipe?
I did not sleep very much because every time a truck passed the ground was shaking. In the morning even trams and trains passed some metres away.

Day 23, 100 km

Next morning I was very tired. Again the northern wind was strong which made it difficult in the turbulences after all big trucks. The road was not only narrow, there were also big "bubbles" in the asphalt where I was supposed to ride. 

 Now you could find many people selling honey along the roadside. I bought the smallest glass (on top of the pile), formed like a bear.

 They sold honey in different colours and consistences.

 Finally I saw the first mountains of the Urals

 I bought a a small bucket with small, very sweet strawberries of a sort I never had tasted before. They called them wood-strawberries and they were sweet although some of them still were green.

I came to a new time zone and I had to set my watches two hours ahead. I decided to make the day shorter (because I had slept so badly) and found a good sleeping place when it still was light. Before I went to bed I fixed a puncture. Unfortunately I could not mend the tube because the hole was between the tube and the valve, so I had to take my spare tube. Then I slept very well.

Day 24, 60 km

The landscape changed.

 It reminded me of Austria

 After some hills I had great views

 This town is called Сим. Sim-city?

 The rocks are very porous and the material is much better to put under the roads than the fine sand that had covered all western Russia. 

So now there are not so many bubbles any more in the asphalt. 

There were street markets everywhere. Actually I found about five shops that even sold bicycles. 

I remembered that I did not have any more spare tubes and asked everywhere if I could buy some. Only one shop had tubes and they were not the right size.

In the afternoon I actually got a flat again on the newly replaced tube I stopped at a café and discovered that this hole was at the same place as the one the day before but this one was definitively was irreparable. I asked where I could buy a new one. They told me that there was a town  called Ust Katav, only seven kilometres away. I tried to mend the old tube once again, but it seemed quite impossible. As soon as I inflated it the patch loosened, because it was so close to the valve. Finally I decided to just inflate very little and walk and led the bicycle. It was a nice walk. Downhill I even rode carefully. The town was bigger than I thought next to a river which also made a lake.

Everywhere were happy people, taking a bath in the lake or the river or just walking through the parks. 

 
Finally I found the sport shop, it looked very closed (and it also was).

If they will have the right size of tube I will find out tomorrow. If not I have to continue with the old tube. Right now it actually seems to be tight!

Near an old suspension bridge I found a nice and cheap hostel, where I am now.