Aaaahhhhh

Sitting on the BA flight home, I have to say I don't think I'm quite ready for my 'Intrepid Explorer' badge. I've been away for roughly ten days, and it feels like a month. After negotiating various coffee shops, taxis and airport desks with no Russian language skills apart from 'yes', 'no', 'thank-you' and 'where is the monkey?' (possibly ??? ?????????), I can't express what a relief it is to sit back and hear the reassuring dulcet tones of a BA Captain informing us that the cabin staff will look after us and we should just 'sit back and enjoy the flight'. You know British airliner captains always have that same luxurious cadence and tone that suggests nothing ever phases them. I also just asked a stewardess for a glass of water and received it with a smile, rather than the 'hmph' I've become accustomed to. Blatant generalisation alert, but I'd say eighty percent of the staff I've encountered seem to sulk when you ask them for something. Or, at least, that's my perception. What do I know?

So, heliboarding. How did it compare to expectations? Well, I think I can say that I'd do it again, and it was an amazing experience. It wasn't, though, quite what I expected. For a start, I hadn't realised just how unreliable it is. The visibility needs to be excellent, the wind speed has to be low. Good snow conditions are a bonus. We went up on two days out of six, and for a trip to the other side of the world, that's not a great return. Sure, we get cashback for heli time not used, and I think we had four-and-a-half hours out of ten remaining at the end of the week. I'd have preferred to have been flying. This trip was still fantastic, though, because we were able to see so much of such a new and interesting place, and jumping out of a helicopter on to a deserted mountain ridge is something to be experienced. Would I go heliboarding again? Definitely. Would I travel to Kamchatka to do it? I'm not sure. Although the spring 'corn' snow conditions were great, it wasn't perfect, or as good as it could have been. I'd want guarantees as to the conditions, and that's never going to happen. I've 'seen' Petropavlovsk now, so 'down' days would hold even less interest for me. I spoke to an Aussie guy who lives and works in Niseko, in Japan, He's been heliskiing for many years, and says he figures on a fifty percent fly return. He also says he comes for the experience, the terrain and the challenge, and that he can get powder most days in Nisseko. I'm considering Japan for next winter...

Last week, though, I stood on the slopes of a volcano, looking down on a Russian helicopter landing by the Pacific Ocean. I snowboarded down and had lunch on the beach. I'd do that again in a shot.

And Russia itself? Well, of the very limited bits I've seen, it's everything I've written about over the past week, so 'see above'. I have a nasty habit of coming up with slick but trite conclusions when I write – 'Jerry's Final Thought', as a friend once described them – so I'm not going to bother. I'm definitely planning on going back to Moscow for a weekend sometime. I was slightly hacked off that we had glorious sunshine on the day we left, since I have a load of photos of Red Square with grey, gloomy skies. Rach reckons she's going to take me to 'White Nights' in St. Petersberg, when they have twenty-four hour daylight. Russia in the Summer...

Meanwhile, time to organise 'Africa'.