Survivor XXVII, Worst Case Scenarios and The Amazing Race rolled into one!
In an age in which we are subjected to numerous manifestations of reality TV, most of which involve more make up and staged scenes than your average soapie, it is refreshing to know that there is still real adventure out there in the world if you go looking for it. But, as I found out the hard way, occasionally adventure comes looking for you too…Step aside Survivor All Stars, Worst Case Scenario and the Amazing Race; this adventure was for real!
The scenario
You are on a 10 day 'holiday' in Russia, where you are attempting to climb Mount Elbrus, at 5,642m the highest mountain in Europe. Elbrus is notorious for its bad weather, and your preparations earlier in the week at the acclimatisation camp have been severely hampered by wind and thundershowers, wiping out any chance of adequate acclimatisation.
Despite this you and your team of 27 other European climbers set up an overnight tent camp at 4100m in preparation for your summit bid the following day.
After waking up at 2am on the Friday, you set off just before 3am armed with
as many layers of clothing as you could carry, including a balaclava, glacier
goggles, headlamp, crampons and ice axe.
The wind is really strong (about 40-50km/h), pushing the temperature down to
around 25 to 30 degrees below zero.
Despite the strong winds, the sun comes out and the clouds stay away sufficiently for you to gradually make your way up the steadily increasing snow and ice slope, towards a saddle that separate the east and west summits
With every last ounce of energy and mental resolve at your disposal you inch your way step by step, breath by gasping breath, up to a long traverse that leads you to a short but steep hill up to the summit flags.
After nine painstaking hours, you slurp what unfrozen water you have left and
let out a victory cry that would make David Beckham proud. You are on top of
the world, and it feels like you have just scored the winning world cup final
goal.
On your way down, your efforts start catching up with you and you grow tired,
but you press on with regular breaks in the knowledge that you now only have
to go down rather than up. You lose your remaining water bottle down a slope,
but by shovelling snow in your mouth and by taking the horizontal route where
possible (ski-trousers can work really well on steep glaciers in sections!)
you eventually haul yourself back into camp at around 5pm, around 14 hours since
you left that morning. This is the equivalent timeframe of a road trip between
Johannesburg and Cape Town, and so in a similar vein all you want to do when
you get back to your tent is pass out and try to recover!
But Then...
On your return to camp you have the very uneasy feeling that you are missing something. In this case it happens to be your travel wallet.
You search your tent and your bag several times, and realise that it has inexplicably gone missing. As you cast your mind back, you start to remember that you packed it into your rucksack in the morning, but later in the day you found that the zip had broken and that your rucksack had been lying open at the bottom for some time. Whilst it did not occur to you at the time, you now realise that at some stage the travel wallet must have worked itself out of your rucksack and, unbeknown to you, flown away with the wind into some valley, never to be found again!
You now have...
- No wallet, no money and no credit card;
- No passport or official documentation that the Russian officials seem to live
off;
- No plane tickets for the trip back to Moscow or the flight home to South Africa;
- No working knowledge of Russian or its cyrillic written language;
- 300km to the nearest airport where you will connect to Moscow in two days
(Sunday);
- Three days before your plane leaves from Moscow to go home via Dubai (Monday).
Your Task...
1. Catch your domestic flight and get back to Moscow on Sunday
2. Organise a means of getting onto your international flight to get home by
Tuesday
Sound tough?
Sound stressful?
I can promise you that it was possibly the worst overseas experience I have ever had. From the moment the sickening realisation hit home, all I wanted to do was get on that Emirates flight and head straight home and get out of Russia.
Steps on the road to recovery
Thankfully there are some positives that give you a glimmer of hope of returning home and not spending the rest of your life imitating Eminem for small change at Russian bus stops.
- You thank your lucky stars that your wonderful girlfriend insisted on you making her copies of all your plane tickets and your passport before you left the country;
- Your Ukrainian hike organiser, who cannot speak much English and is starting
to lose his marbles at the age of sixty-something, has some resourceful friends
living in a nearby village, one of whom offers to put you up for the night and
the other who has an internet connection and a colour printer, a combination
so rare that not even the district post office possessed a set.
- Despite your hostess cooking you woeful food that makes you as sick as a dog
for the next two days, you manage to sleep with a roof over your head for the
first time in days, and your kind Russian leader manages to convince the military
police to come in early on the Sunday morning (they only usually work for two
hours in the afternoon here) and take a statement from you that you hope will
be sufficient to enable you to get on the plane to Moscow; He also pays the
military officer an undisclosed gratuity fee for his services
- You then manage to flag down two local motorists, who seem keen on helping to get you to the airport, which is still roughly 300km away. They don't seem to have too much else to do, and are happy to go along for the ride seeing as all their petrol is being paid for;
- Seeing as your grasp of the Russian language is considered dangerous, your
guide opts to go with you all the way to the airport, despite the fact that
he needs to be back in a nearby town by nightfall in order to arrange the departure
of the German group on the Tuesday; Your kind hostess from the previous night
has given him all the money she has in her house to assist you in getting to
the airport.
After getting through passport control at the airport entrance and emerging
unscathed from an interrogation room that looked like it came out of a gangster
movie, your guide finally manages to convince the operations controller of the
infamous Siberian airlines (sounds like one of those airlines you hear jokes
being told about) that you actually have a right to be on the plane that is
leaving in thirty minutes for Moscow;
- Another 'gratuity' fee down and your guide, looking somewhat older and paler than two days before, pushes 1000 Russian Roubles into your hand (about R250) and wishes you all the best in Moscow and a safe trip home, mumbling something about the hope that you will someday, somehow pay him back;
- In a truly emotional state you give your Russian friend a traditional hug and set off for the plane, only to be robbed by the baggage master who nails you 300 roubles for having excess baggage! But at least you have got on the plane and are heading back to the more first-world environment of Moscow.
Operation Moscow
- You land in Moscow on Sunday evening knowing your international flight leaves
at 16h00 the next day. After negotiating with passport control you discover
that the only way they will let you out of the country with your current documentation
(or lack thereof) is in a wooden coffin, and even then they would be keener
for you to go back to the UK seeing as that is the country in which you are
a citizen. The fact that you don't have any family links in London doesn't seem
to phase them in the slightest;
After stowing your climbing gear at the airport for a small charge of 400 roubles
(at least you can move freely now and don't represent a danger to your immediate
passengers thanks to a loosely swinging ice axe!) you decide to make yourself
comfortable for the night in the waiting room's modern steel chairs - only 14
hours to kill and then you can get into the city in the morning to find the
British Embassy, which is your best bet of getting out of Russia;
- The next morning you spend an hour trying to straighten your spine from the night before, shave for the first time in a week to ensure that you actually look presentable, and head off into Moscow's relatively user-friendly metro system to get to the British consulate - the single and most important landmark building in Moscow that needs to be seen before returning home.
- After nearly being frightened away by the 50m queue outside when you get there, you soon realise that all these people are trying to obtain British Visas, and fortunately you can go right to the front and see the assistant Consulate general.
- You explain to them your dire situation, and they calmly inform you that with an emergency passport, diplomatic note and a payment to the Russian ministry of foreign affairs, you may actually be able to make your plane that is now leaving in five hours' time. The only catch is that it costs about $300 in total, you have no money, and the banks in South Africa are closed for a public holiday so your parents can't transfer any funds to you!
- Enter a very kind Scottish gentleman who was in the queue behind you, and had been listening with interest to your story. He then calmly offers to lend you the money to help you out, all $300 plus some extra money for the airport. What a good samaritan! You can never say anything bad about Scottish people ever again, least of all call them stingy!
- Resisting the temptation to hug him and scream for joy at the top of your voice like a British footballer, you thank your lucky stars, get your relevant documentation and speed off to the airport as fast as the metro and shuttle buses allow in order to pay the foreign ministry, get your ticket reissued and get off Russian soil!
Sting in the tail
- But just when you thought it was over, you get to the airport, duly receive your emergency exit visa from the Russians, and dance over to the Emirates Airlines counter where you display a copy of your original ticket and ask for it to be reissued so you can get your boarding pass;
- The man behind the counter says it is no problem and they will happily reissue you your ticket - at a nominal fee of $50. Fifty dollars? Converting the roubles Andy the Scot lent you leaves you with only $37, a depressing $13 short! You plea with the man, think about crying, offer to repay him, marry his ugly stepsister - whatever it takes, just let you get onto the plane!
- After visibly conflicting his conscience and goodwill towards fellow mankind with his fiduciary duty to his company, he manages to cut a deal whereby the airline management waivers $13 off the fee, and you are reissued with your boarding pass.
- Again suppressing your natural football celebratory instincts, you thank him kindly and approach passport control as if it were the final hurdle on your track to freedom. The woman disappears with your emergency passport for a few minutes, but eventually returns and grudgingly stamps your passport, allowing you to board your flight and complete your escape from Absolom!
Freedom!
It is hard to explain the sense of relief I felt whilst boarding the plane. It felt like I was a POW returning home for the first time, or as though I had been given a second lease on life. The experience has definitely shaken me up though, and made me a little more apprehensive about travelling alone in wild, foreign countries. It will also make me more paranoid about my travel documents. However fortunately everything worked out and I was extremely lucky that I happened to stumble across several kind people who were able to help me out. It is good to know such people still exist in the world, and will ensure that I will do everything I can to help someone else should they be in a little bit of trouble somewhere down the line.
It is so good to be back with friends and loved ones, but I suppose it will not be long before the yearning to travel arises once more. I guess I'll just be a little more careful this time!