Day 41, June 7 - Kazan - Ilet River (Mari El Republic)

75km - 2582km, sunny 25C, 20km/h headwind, 0 shots, 0 sauna, 0 Lenin, Camp, Flat tire

Got up and started to pack up my bags for the early afternoon departure. My rear tire had gone flat in the past week so I had to pull another tube (because we couldn't find the mysterious leak, even in a tub of water). Headed to the store and bought the goods required to cook up some spaghetti and pasta sauce. After lunch, I thought that I would give Visa one last call to ensure that my request had gone through. I was pleased to hear that SFCU had, yet again, denied my request for a replacement card. I called SFCU back and got on the phone with a manager, who offered less than zero amounts of help. She did tell me that the emergency card was only good for 30 days, so if I was travelling for three more months it would be useless thereafter (why not tell me that in the beginning?). I decided to pass on the credit card and just go with the replacement debit cards, which were already on route.

After that it was time to go, so me and the boys brought all my goods downstairs, packed up the bicycle and, with fresh pasta in my belly, started peddling in the headwind toward Mari El Republic (fortunately, the terrain was fairly flat!). The route was pretty easy going with heavy traffic for the first 30km. I then turned onto a smaller road heading north and ended up on the northern road up to Yoshkar-Ola with a nice side/tailwind. The road improved (from crappy) after 15km and my speed jumped up to about 30km/h. I decided to camp in the forest just beside the Ilet river in Mari Chodra National Park, about 70km south of Y-O. People had warned me about the fantasticness of mosquitoes of Mari El. I quickly found out that the National Park was closer to a mosquito sanctuary, being swarmed by hundreds within seconds of stopping to set up camp. Set up and cooked dinner as quick as I could, and then dove into the tent to seek shelter from the bloodsucking beasts. Had to spend eight minutes killing all the mosquitos in the tent before finally enjoying my crap-tastic tomato macaroni dinner. Went to bed about 10pm listening to Chinese pop music on my shortwave radio.