Left Russia ... Just

Okay. So the ferry departure time was 8pm and being the careful lad I can be sometimes, I booked a "taxi" in the morning for 630pm that night. We had to be at the ferry a bit before 715pm to pick up tickets, pass through customs and passport control - so we had given ourselves plenty of time ... the sea terminal wasnt that far away ... riiiiight.

Our "taxi" driver rocked up a bit before 630, all good so far. Turns out that the "taxi" driver was probably a relation of the hostel owner. Whatever. A taxi is a taxi is a taxi(ish) - at least it is when the price has been agreed up front. Piled into the car and off we went. Now, I would've thought that as we were at the end of Nevskii Prospekt (st) we would've just headed down there, followed it to the end, crossed over the Neva River, turned left after the bridge and that would've been about it. We headed in the opposite direction. Okay. This guy is a local. Give him the benefit of the doubt (is that a saying?). Traffic not too bad so far, until we started heading in the right direction. Gridlock St Petersburg style. Slowly our taxi driver began his descent into madness muttering things in Russian, waving his hands, abusing other drivers, cutting in front of other cars.

After about 5 minutes of this he decides to try another street. He turns off of the one we were on and heads to the other one, only to get there and be greeted with the same mess of cars. He mutters something else in Russian, wave his hands and heads back to the street we just came from.

He turns around and asks us what time we need to get there (at least we think that is what he asked). We gesture 7pm which brought a shake of the head, more muttering and more waving of the arms. At this point we have already blown 10 minutes and hardly moved anywhere. The awareness of our deadline caused our driver to shift in to top gear in the mania stakes. Turning back TOWARDS the hostel he beeps and swerves his way back towards the main street (Nevskii).

By this stage I am starting to get a little worried. It is about ten to seven and we have got about 2% of the way there.

We make it back to the main street and start heading in the right direction. At least the traffic was actually moving on this street, albeit slowly. But I wasn't complaining. At this stage any progress was better then swerving from one street to another making no progress at all!!! So the madness continued all the way down Nevskii Prospekt. At one point the driver broke out into a huge guffaw when we passed a police car with its siren and lights going, stuck in traffic also. He turned around to us and with two index fingers raised above his head, twrling them around, he tried to explain the joke. Yep.

We finally made it to the end of Nevskii Prospekt at about ten past seven. At this point there was a small growing hope that we might actually catch the ferry. The odds had certainly shortened from the 300-1 odd I would've offered you about 20 minutes before.

The traffic was much better once we crossed the bridge over the Neva River and headed towards the sea terminal. Not to say that the erratic driving didn't continue : more cutting across lanes, frantic muttering and the odd curse at other drivers. Hitting the last leg of our taxi ride we could see the ferry at the end of the road. Just as we got right near the drop off point we had to take a huge detour (okay 750m or so but at this stage anything was a huge detour!!!) before we could then turn back and enter the terminal.

The detour behind us, the taxi driver pulled up about 100m from the terminal door and let us out. We grabbed our bags, handed the driver the cash and ran to the terminal. About half seven by this stage, maybe a little earlier. Entering the terminal, looking worried no doubt, a guy pointed us to the ticket desk and, thank god, they gave us our tickets. As our tickets our handed to us the man behind the counter says, "Hurry up, checkin has closed.". We jog past the closed x ray machines and up to passport control. There is one family and one old man in front of us, but other than that was it. We were the last ones through. Yep, the last two on the ferry. One or two more minutes and that would've been it!

Russian passport control turned out to be rather painless, probably because we didn't have any time for them to hassle us! No customs forms, nothing. Worse still, no time to buy some cheap cold beer before we left Russia :-(

Through one last door, outside, up some stairs, over the gangway and on to the boat. Damn it felt good to be on that boat. In the taxi I had had visions of having to return to our booked out hostel, organising a bus ticket to Tallin before our visa expired the next day and then a 12 hour bus trip to Tallinn.

I don't think I want to go in the Amazing Race after all. "Detour: Make your way to Tallin by ferry and find the Beata Hostel in the Old Town. The last team to arrive may be eliminated ...."

(I must say in defence of the taxi driver, we probably should've given ourselves a bit more time and the traffic was incredibly bad! Without his desperate attempts we probably would be on a bus right now ...)