later we pulled into a trucker stop
and headed for a cabin. It was an old
truck converted to a little coffee shop,
so it was super small. We must have
looked ridiculous, both of us were so
cold that we just flung open the door
in full gear.
The warm air from inside, flooded
out as we entered, and we appeared
as a silhouette in the mist. I imagine
the friendly Russian lady behind
the till was half expecting us to say
“tonight Matthew, I’m going to be …”
– but instead, we moaned and grum-
bled to each other as we stripped
down to our jeans and jumpers.
After about ten minutes of faffing,
we had got settled in and we were
tucking in to our borscht and slurp-
ing coffee when a really friendly guy
came and started chatting to us in
Russian.
This had been a regular occur-
rence, but this was different … he
just kept going and kept smiling. At
this point, we were both trying to
work out if we still had all ten toes
and although he seemed like a nice
guy, we really didn’t have too much
patience for a full game of charades.
He persisted nonetheless and then
eventually took out his phone and
began to show everyone videos of
us driving, as well as, our spot track-
TRAVERSE 25
er page. It turned out he had been
tracking us since Vladivostok and as
we were passing through his neck of
the woods, he thought he would come
and see if we needed any help.
His name was Claus and he was the
first of many, many others.
Over the weeks that followed, we
were, more or less, passed along by
groups of people like Claus. At every
reasonably sized town there was a
group waiting to greet us, literally
by the roadside, in -20/30°C. They’d
be stood waiting for our arrival with
motorbikes or welcome banners.
We had guys driving miles to come
and find us and give us gifts - gher-