August 3 Chandalaz range

We decided to stay in Nakhodka for one more night to go for a walk in the hills and then go to the beach. First, we went to the tire repair service, where we learned that the puncture was quite irreparable (it tore the cords). Thankfully (yet again!), we had a spare tyre that we were carrying from Novosibirsk. We wanted to leave it in Khabarovsk, but Pablo made a good use of it by putting our wellington boots inside, so we kept it on the roof rack. Good decision!

After fitting the tire, we went to Chandalaz - a hill crest, advertised as a local walk, which is very accessible by car. Someone wrote a walk description and said that we could leave a car at the hill and then walk to the top. Navigator suggested a road from the other side of the hill, but we took the one I found the description of. Well, the road kept going up and up - there was no place to leave a car. This was quite an off-road drive and as we were going, we were hoping that the road on the other side would be better. That was quite a drive! There were about 20 meters of fallen rocks - there was a road, but what a road! As we were driving down at the other side, the mud was getting denser and denser - our tires are not great for the mud… We got stuck 560 meters from the village. We went for help. The first person we asked said he had nothing to help us with. There was a little tractor, but it was broken. Another tractor was waiting for its driver until Monday (we were Saturday). We thought to walk to the next village, which was about 5km away. Thankfully, yet again, we passed by a house, whose owners knew someone with good truck.

As we were waiting for the truck, we were offered tea with pancakes and linden honey. The honey fresh - 1 week ago it was collected from neighbour’s honey comb. The owner, Vassily, and his son and wife were quite happy to host us. Vassily was intrigued that Pablo was from Argentina and kept saying that we were doing a good job by traveling all around - he was quite thrilled by our trip and adventures.

The truck arrived and went to help us. At some point, it was unsure whether it would not get struck in the mud himself, but decided to move on. First attempt failed, but then our Patriot moved slowly but steadily. As it got out of the mud, Pablo drove through the mud full speed and passed the big puddle and more dirt. We were out!

We drove our host Vassily to the nearest village, where he had some business to do and then went to the carwash immediately. We ended up the day in a pub with excellent seafood and some life music. Although the music was very loud, we were so happy to be among people and not sleeping in a car in the forest!