Day 20 - 23 July 2011 Novosibirsk

We hit the shops this morning. Georgia was desperate to buy some 3 inch heels so that she could fit in with the crowd here in Siberia. The boys talked us into catching a trolley bus to the zoo. We had our directions for the bus driver written on a piece of paper by the hotel concierge. Catch bus no 2, pay only 65 roubles for all of us. That’s about $3 for 5 people. It was not far to go and we were dumped at the entrance to the zoopark. Being a Saturday it was very busy with lots of families. I’ve never seen Auckland zoo as busy as this. The blurb said it was the biggest zoo in Siberia with 11,000 species. I reckon 10,000 of those were rats. Georgia had salmonella wrap for lunch and I had the pork worm kebab. The meat in both was grossly undercooked and I hope it doesn’t haunt us tomorrow. We see black grizzly bears and foxes which are unusual for us. But then they also had some cats in a cage and a St Bernard dog too so maybe they are unusual for them?

We caught the bus back. It was very full and we had to stand. The bus conductor came to get tickets and tried to squeeze past me. I’m not small but this lady was twice my size and it was a very uncomfortable suck in of the bellies, this delighted my rally buddies who sniggered and laughed the whole way home.

We took the cars to a car wash today. Unfortunately for the boys it was not the bikini clad babes cleaning as they were expecting/ hoping but young guys in shorts who did the best job ever! The cars were filthy but they took about 15 mins to clean the defender the cleanest I have ever seen it. Cost about $30 – not bad.

As I loaded some supplies in the truck in the hotel Sibir capark a car pulls up behind me and the window goes down. “Were you in Krasnoyarsk a couple of days ago?” he asks. Yep. “ Oh my god, I saw you guys – you’re from New Zealand? That’s so cool…… He was very excited although his girlfriend did not seem impressed at all.