May 2016  Kamchatka. We have arrived! 

After almost three years, the long awaited helicopter flight over Kamchatka's volcanoes is just one sleep away IF the weather behaves. All we can do is wait and hope. In the meantime we are being semi-immersed in Russian hospitality. We had the real deal Russian borscht (which actually originated in Ukraine) for lunch - with Spanish wine .... oh dear never let it be said we are not global in our tastes. Our hotel is basic early 1950s but is adequate and the staff are very patient with us helpless, monolingual English-speaking visitors. I practice saying the simplest of words of greeting and gratitude and am pretty tongue tied, but I have found a practice buddy. The doorman is trying to learn English so we set about having a bizarre 'conversation' via our respective phrase books (the same one the kids and I used back in the 80s!). I have to practice a few words before going down to dinner tonight. After I get some washing done! Our clothes could walk to the bathroom on their own - our journey to date has been a bit warm and we've done a bit of walking too. That topped off with 'sleeping' in the same things a few nights.

The two delightful Alexs who fed and looked out for us

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (PK) is a frontier town of 250,000 people. A fair bit of building going on but it is struggling economically and it really shows. The township we haven't explored as yet but the surrounding countryside is wonderful - snow capped mountains ring the town overlooked by a few towering volcanoes looming monstrous on the horizon and in the foreground, white-barked Birch trees are just starting to show some green. So it looks a bit like an Ansell Adam's dramatic black and white photo albeit with smudges of pale green here and there.

A room with a view! Koryaksky volcano (L) towers over the PK

It's 2 degrees outside at the moment but we are toasty. What a contrast to the last couple of days of 30 degree humidity in HK. It will be a holiday of contrasts - and that's precisely how we like it. More anon, do svidaniya