10 Days of Travel (No, Seriously)

 

Our month in Armenia was a great one, but as all months do, it had to come to an end. We needed to get to our locations in Kazakhstan, but this time it would be a little bit different from our previous travel days. I’ll just jump right into it so you can see what I mean:

 

March 2, 2018 – Yerevan, Armenia

Our journey begins in Yerevan, our last ministry location. We wake up, pack our bags, and prepare ourselves for the journey that is ahead. Two night trains, an unscheduled 30 hour boat ride across the Caspian, a 32 hour train ride, and 3 border crossings were awaiting us. Things go pretty smoothly, but after 7 complete months on the World Race, we know that isn’t gonna last long. So before too long, a teammate comes out of her room telling us that she can’t find her passport. Perfect. After unpacking her bag, parts of our bags, checking our passports, calling the U.S. Embassy (no joke), calling all the cafes we had been to, and calling the other team staying in Armenia, we finally get a call back from the other team saying that they found it in a stack of Bibles we had brought over to their house! The answer to our problems was found in the Bible… I feel like there’s a lesson there. But anyway! We have our passports and are ready to gooooooooooo over to the other team’s place to wait for the train that doesn’t leave for about 7 hours.

Welcome to the World Race. There’s a lot of waiting involved.

However, the 7 hours pass along rather quickly. We stuff ourselves and our giant packs into a small taxi, spill water all over said taxi because we can’t move our arms to pick it up, and make it to the train station.

 

Look how pretty we look! (Take it in, folks, cuz you know this won’t last long)

 

9:00pm – Night Train to Tbilisi, Georgia

We board the train and enter into what feels like a toaster oven. There wasn’t a lot of air movement, which made for a good time when hauling your 45-pound pack onto your top bunk because you can’t find room for it elsewhere. The good news: I realize later that there is storage underneath the bunks on the bottom! The bad news: Ain’t nobody got time to move that back down! The bag stays.

We depart at 9:30pm. There was a lot of swaying going on and due to the heat, I utilized the closed door to shed some layers as I slept…

… Which was fine until 3am, when one of the workers on the train opened our door without warning to tell us that passport checks were happening. Note to self: wear pants to sleep on next train ride. Sorry, guy.

At 4am, there was a second passport check. Lesson learned, y’all. Pants were on and I was ready to take on the world.

 

Our room on the train! Notice my bunk-mate aka my giant bag.

 

March 3, 2018 – 8:00am – Tbilisi, Georgia

We made it to Tbilisi! It was honestly nice to go to a familiar city for a day. We find a spot to leave our 16 bags, much to the joy of the workers at the train station. No WiFi, no currency because we’re only there for a day, and the bathrooms cost money to use. Yes, Lord.

Thanks be to God for some left over currency that is still in my wallet at this point.

So what do you do when you have about 12 hours to kill in a city? You go see a movie at the mall! And what do you do with your bags while you’re gone? Absolutely nothing! Because let’s s be real, who in their right mind would choose to pick them up?

So a group of us grab a taxi, barter a bit, and head over to the mall to see Black Panther (GREAT movie, 10/10, would recommend). By the time we get back, the entire squad is back together again and we once again await our next train to our next destination. This journey is still only just beginning, my friends.

 

8:30pm – Night Train to Baku, Armenia

There are no doors on this train (not that that did me much good on the last one, amiright?), but it is significantly cooler than the last and not as wobbly. The first few hours are mostly spent awake, with hour-long stops turning into dance lessons outside, passport checks, and the confiscation of Armenian peanut butter because Azerbaijan is not a fan (sorry, Preston). Also, apparently it is inappropriate to sing R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly” while everyone is getting their passports checked. The head lady on the train makes that pretty clear. Not salty at all about it.

 

Preston, maintaining his positive attitude despite having his peanut butter confiscated.

 

However, we are all soon asleep, few of us woken up by that same lady and asked to give up our sheets. Other people are able to sleep for another hour, undisturbed. Not salty about that either.

 

One of our proud logistics leaders, most likely wishing he could’ve slept longer.

 

March 4, 2018 – 9:00am – Baku Azerbaijan

We make it to Baku! We don’t know how long we’re here because the ship we want to take depends heavily on the weather. So we head over to our hostel (curtains over our beds! Hot showers! Washer AND dryer!) and make ourselves at home for who knows how long.

 

It may not seem like much, but curtains are GAME-CHANGERS.

 

It is my first time in Baku, and I have to say that I am so impressed! I love that we are close to the sea. While we are here, a few of us explore the new city and get some food.

 

Baku, Azerbaijan

 

My adventures in Azerbaijan include discovering Nutelland, having a dog almost follow me home, having an Authentic Love team reunion (that our amazing guys PAID for! What?), watching movies, and processing through some things that I really needed to deal with.

 

Authentic Love team reunion!

 

We also use this time to go grocery shopping. For the apocalypse? No, but you’d probably think that with the amount of food I buy. We were told that there might not be food on the ship. Gotta do what you gotta do.

 

March 7, 2018 – 1:45pm – On Our Way to the Port

 

After a few days of phone calls and uncertainty, we finally all get on a bus and head over to the port. We pile into a bus with as many seats as there are people and no storage underneath for our bags. Does this deter us? Dude, it’s month 8. We’ve learned to make anything work.

 

Business in the front…

 

Party in the back!

 

We arrive, unsure of how to go about this border crossing/ship boarding process. But we all make it through after being told to pick up and put on our bags about 20 times. Just think of it as weight lifting to kill time.

 

When you don’t have an American football, you improvise.

 

3:00pm – Ship Across the Caspian Sea

We make it onto the ship and explore a little, but only in groups of at least two because safety first. I walk into the room I’m assigned to. Let me tell you, if that room on the first train was hot, this was hades. Imagine a box sitting out in the middle of a Texas summer. Then imagine a hot hair dryer blowing full blast on you. Welcome to our room on the ship.

 

Literal oven.

 

Trying to stay cool.

 

But! We are free to go up to the deck and explore some cooler areas of the ship when we want to. Fortunately, only one nearly-sleepless night is spent there. Also, it turns out that we are provided food and showers! I make fun a lot, but God is good.

 

Movies with friends help.

 

The end of our stay on the ship is spent trying to determine when we would actually arrive. 30 minutes? Two hours? Five hours? No one actually knows. But hey, we are ready and have some time to kill.

 

Wall sits with friends also help.

 

March 8, 2018 – 10:30pm – Aktau, Kazakhstan

We arrive in Kazakhstan! Men in uniforms board the boat, only to ask us to come outside to check our bags. Our bags are checked, we make it through to get our passports, and we are officially in our 10th country thus far on the Race! Our journey is not over though. Kazakhstan is huge and we still have a 32 hour train that we need to catch the next day.

We find some taxi drivers who manage to get my team and our two squad leaders in their cars and we head over to what we think is the hotel we asked for. After driving into a dark driveway, we learn from our taxi drivers that they don’t want us to go to the hotel we asked for because it is too expensive. We try to explain that we know the cost, but after google translating with them and after taking a look around the place they brought us to, we agree to stay the night. It had a bed and showers. Works for us.

 

March 9, 2018 – 8:00am – Taxi to Train Station

The next morning, our taxi-driver friends pick us up again to take us to the train station. Aside from being pulled over by a cop, everything goes pretty smoothly. We arrive at the train station and I help buy the tickets to our location. I am even able to use some Russian that I’ve been learning on an app for the last few months! I can now confidently buy train tickets in a place that doesn’t speak English. That may not be a big deal to some, but I’m pumped about it!

 

Our squad leader, Matt, demonstrating perfect form on travel days.

 

We have about 6 hours until our train leaves, so we use that time to buy some more groceries, to get some ramen that was also heated up for me by the nice ladies in the train station, to get some more currency, and to take pictures with these women in a cafe across the street. Not a bad way to begin our last leg of our trip!

 

What do you do when you’re waiting for a train? You make friends!

 

3:20pm – Train to North Kazakhstan

 

Our other squad leader, Emily, looking excited because we only have 2 trains to go!

 

We board our train, which is much like our train to Baku, but fortunately, without all the passport checks. We manage to get our bags up to the storage above our top bunk beds, I witness a man literally get pushed off a train, and we get comfy because, hey, we’re here for the next 32 hours.

 

My teammate, Elaine, modeling how to get comfy on your top bunk.

 

Only a few hours into our trip, my friend Elaine invites me to explore the train with her, so we go down a few cars to discover a cafe! on the train! Praise the Lamb! I spend the majority of that first night there, ordering tea and salad and mashed potatoes, and spending time with another team that was on the train with us, but was getting off at a later stop.

 

When you find a cafe on your train <3

 

The second day is mostly spent talking to Jesus, napping, and hanging out at the cafe. Well, hanging out at the cafe until the women working there asks us to leave the car. And by “asks us,” I mean she came up to me and asked me to ask everyone else to leave. Okay.

 

Making friends with the locals

 

After some confusion about our arrival time (being told we were about an hour and a half ahead of schedule, frantically packing our bags, then realizing that we were still on time), we make it to our first and last stop for the night until our final train to our location.

 

March 11, 2018 – 1:30am – North Kazakhstan

We get off our train and immediately step into what feels like the frozen tundra. We’re not in Cyprus anymore, folks. We walk as fast as one can walk with a huge pack on their back and a lot of ice beneath their feet and we camp in the train station.

As we are thawing ourselves from the cold, a kind man offers to buy us all some tea. I’m liking this country already! We wait about 2 hours before boarding our final train.

 

This nice man bought us tea!

 

4:45am – Final Train to Location

On our way to board our last train, my teammate Sam falls on the ice, and we use all manpower available to get her and her bag up off the ice, but we make it! Only about an hour away from the end of travel after 10 days!

 

March 11, 2018 – 5:45am – OUR LOCATION!

I wake up from my nap on the train and get off with my team. We head toward the station to find our host who would come to get us. These men approach us asking if we were American, and thinking that they were taxi drivers (this happens a lot, fyi), we try to explain that we already have a ride to our place. Fortunately our team leader, Maryah, realizes that these men were in fact our hosts.

We pile into their vans. We make it into our place. We lay down our bags. Travel Week is over and we can finally rest!

 

Our home for the first week!

 

6:30am – BUT WAIT

Our kind host tells us that he is excited to have us and explains that he would be back in two hours to pick us up, take us to breakfast, and then bring us to church where we may be speaking and/or leading some worship. Perfect.

Welcome to the World Race!

 

Our first day, just 5 hours after arrival

 

Thanks for traveling with us!