Editor’s note: Sedgwick native Levi Bridges and friend Ellery Althaus of North Truro, Mass., have finished their 9,500-mile cycling trip across Asia and Europe. Today, Bridges files his final installment about the trip.
Nearly one year ago, I arrived in Russia. My only experience flying within the country was not accompanied by a complimentary matryoshka doll or any other cordiality. It began by paying my first, and only, bribe to a Russian official.
My trip started in Boston’s Logan Airport. While checking in, a British Air employee gave me a quizzical look as I unloaded a giant box, long as a refrigerator, from a baggage cart.
“What is that?” she asked.
“A bicycle,” I replied. “A friend and I are cycling across Russia.”
“Isn’t it too cold for that now?” she replied.
“We’re taking a Russian language class there until spring,” I said.
She checked my luggage: the bicycle, box of cycling gear and a duffel bag full of warm clothes for the Russian winter. I watched as all of my possessions for the next year disappeared down a conveyor belt.
For years, this bicycle trip had only existed as a dream. Suddenly, my Adam’s apple rose like a robin’s head peaking from a nest.
I swallowed apprehensively. The dream was reality.
Welcome to Russia
Our plane descended into Russia and landed alongside an endless line of large Soviet aircraft thickly covered in snow. The derelict planes were my first glimpse of the curious disorder that permeates Russian scenery. In the coming months, these sights would seem commonplace.
Moscow is the largest metropolitan area in Europe. We arrived in Domodedovo International Airport and had to transfer to Sheremetyevo, another airport on the opposite side of Moscow. From Sheremetyevo, we would fly across Russia to Vladivostok, the city on the Sea of Japan where our bicycle trip began.
No direct public transportation links the two airports. With two boxed bicycles and all of our luggage, we had to hire a car.
“Hello, my name Sergei. Where you go?” asked a sagacious Russian cab driver in broken English.
“Sheremetyevo,” Ellery said.
“Sheremetyevo, I have van,” he replied. “I take you. $150. You don’t find cheaper.”
We wheeled away our carts, stacked with luggage, to find something cheaper. After inquiring at rental car agencies, we couldn’t find anybody else with a van. Renting two cars was outrageously expensive; $150 started seeming cheap.
“I told you,” Sergei said shaking his head in annoyance when we returned.
Sergei led us outside. A lanky Russian arrived in a van and helped us load in our bags and boxes. The luggage nearly filled the entire van.
I stepped into the passenger seat. The driver cranked up the radio. A lively Russian folk song, vaguely resembling polka music, filled the van’s interior. Our driver lit a cigarette and we sped off across Moscow.
From the van, I watched the daunting images of Moscow’s outskirts, bulbous smokestacks of enormous power plants beneath Soviet-era apartment buildings tall as skyscrapers blur past. Moscow seemed intimidating, larger than life.
Our driver maneuvered through wild traffic in a snowstorm. We reached Sheremetyevo as darkness fell and an early winter night began.
We’d flown from Boston to Moscow on British Air, one of the only airlines which carries bicycles for free. From Moscow, we would proceed to Vladivostok on the Russian carrier Aeroflot, which we’d been told would charge $100 to transport a bicycle.
In Sheremetyevo, an Aeroflot employee simply checked my luggage without mentioning the fee. Then she neglected to give us our passports or boarding passes.
Suddenly, an Aeroflot worker appeared behind us holding our tickets, passports and a calculator. He led us away into a quiet corner.
“You have much weight,” he said. Then, quickly adding a succession of seemingly random numbers, he arrived at the sum of 23,000 rubles.
We both instantly realized we would have to bribe our way on the plane. Twenty-three thousand rubles. It was a lot of money. But the plane would leave in minutes, our luggage already headed toward Vladivostok, 5,000 miles away.
“I give you discount,’” the official said while making another calculation, “Fifteen thousand rubles.”
He handed us our passports.
“Put the money inside, give me them, then you have tickets.”
And with those instructions, he left with our boarding passes.
We rushed to an ATM and withdrew 15,000 rubles, about $450. Following the man’s instructions, we gave him our passports. He withdrew the rubles and handed us the passports and tickets.
Paying the bribe was our only negative interaction in Russia. For the next seven months, we encountered hundreds of Russians who generously fed, housed and welcomed us into their country. We couldn’t have ridden across Siberia without the many kind folks who helped us.
Vladivostok to Boston
Ten months later, we arrived at the Atlantic Ocean in the city of Porto, Portugal. My mother and several friends came to see us finish.
From Boston to Vladivostok, and back again, my weary body and bicycle have traveled around the earth’s circumference. Completing a 9,500-mile bike trip is easier said than done. But getting the bicycle successfully on and off airplanes is arguably the hardest part.
My mother and I were to leave on a 6 a.m. flight from Porto to Boston. Before we left, I had a bike shop pack my bicycle in a box. My mother and I rented a car to easily bring our luggage to the airport the next morning.
That afternoon we picked up our rental car and drove to the bike shop. Sitting in the passenger seat, I clutched the handles above the window with white knuckles.
Now, before writing me off as another male who can’t handle being in a car driven by a woman, consider my situation: Traveling on bicycle for eight months, I had rarely exceeded 13 mph. Suddenly, I found myself catapulting forward on an interstate at 65 mph or faster. The sensation was terrifying.
We became quite lost driving to the bike shop and frequently stopped to ask directions. As a Spanish speaker, I quickly realized how similar Spanish and Portuguese are. For example, the Spanish phrase “a la derecha,” or, “to the right,” in Portuguese sounds like “a la deresha.” I could understand just enough to ask directions.
Finally, we found the bike shop and loaded the enormous box into the car.
Porto is a large city divided by the mighty Douro River. The city’s old town, a confusing network of cobblestone streets, lies upon each side of the river on steep mountains rising above the waterfront. Driving in Porto can be quite confusing.
Observing our map, we discovered that a left turn from a nearby street would take us directly to the river. From there, a coastal road led right to where we were staying.
We set off bravely. In minutes, we found the street and took the turn, only to find it closed for construction. My mother expertly used the manual transmission to reverse up the street and then accidentally turned back into traffic going the wrong way. We became lost on a series of one-way streets before getting back on the road in the right direction.
Round two
“We’re doing good,” I said encouraging my mother, “the next left should bring us to the river.”
We turned left and somehow became hopelessly lost in a labyrinth of cobblestone roads so narrow only one car could pass through at a time. Not knowing if we were driving on one-way streets, I constantly feared we might collide with another car. We became hopelessly lost.
Round three
We spent hours driving along Portuguese side streets. I asked so many people directions that the phrase “a la deresha” seemed meaningless. At last, we arrived on a steep hilltop. To our left, a suspension bridge for trains led high above the Douro. Across the train tracks, a small cobblestone road led downhill around a sharp turn and disappeared.
I got out of the car.
“How do you get to the water!?!” I asked a passing businessman in desperation.
“Just follow that road across the tracks,” he said.
“What did he say?” my mother asked as I got back into the car.
“Drive straight,” I said.
“Really?” she asked.
“Yes, over the train tracks, and down that narrow street.” After 10 months of traveling, I could hear the tension in my voice.
We descended down a rough old street on a steep hillside. The road was part of another half-finished construction project; sheets of corrugated metal blocked the sides in lieu of guardrails. I stared at the rushing Douro hundreds of feet below.
“It’s OK, honey,” Mom said as I anxiously writhed.
The winding street descended and merged with the waterfront road we’d sought for so long. We both cheered.
I flew home with the German carrier Lufthansa. They charged me $225, nearly as much as the Russian bribe, to transport my bike to Boston.
As the bicycle box disappeared down the conveyor belt, a sense of victory, more poignant than arriving at the Atlantic on my bike, overwhelmed me.
“I’ve overcome the hardest obstacle,” I thought. “Now, I’ve really cycled across Eurasia.”
bdnsports@bangordailynews.net