Woke up from camping and made a nice grueltastic breakfast. Packed up and headed east over fairly flat, but often broken concrete roads (I predict that I will see a lot worse over the next few months though!).
Made it to Kalininsk and headed into town to try to find a Russian SIM card for my mobile. Befriended an older gentlemen who made it his personal mission of the day to get me a card. Sadly, only people presenting Russian passports can legally get Russian SIM cards; however, the older gent walked 15 minutes home and back again to get his passport so that he could buy one for me.With phone in hand, I headed out on to the highway and stopped to get some quick eats. The first place had little pastries that resembled many found in South America (Laura?). I grabbed a couple and then rode 8km down the road until I hit up a roadside cafe located right next to the river. Stopped and had a delicious (but expensive) shashlik lunch. I
was quickly befriended by a couple of lit-up guys, one of whom was a copy (maybe still on duty) and then other wanted to find me a bolshoy baba for the night. The latter was so insistent on his pursuit that they had to kick him out of the cafe and lock the doors until his copper friend took him home.At this point, I decided that the milage of the previous few days allowed me to take a 1/2 day off. I chatted with the cafe staff, who said that I could pitch my tent by the river for free if I wanted. No sooner then my tent was up, I jumped into the river to wash the past few days of road slime off my body. Had a few beers and then chatted with the owner's son in English! (well, fairly basic English since he was only 10 years old...) The female waitstaff invited me into the kitchen after supper hour was over and we had a good time speaking Rusglish and having a few toasts.
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