Riding the BAM Road – Day 4: Chara to Kuanda

We got up early the next day, only to get a call from our Kamaz-driver in Kuanda who was supposed to drive the bikes over the river on the back of his truck. “River is too high, you have to wait a couple of days until the water level drops”. The Kuanda river is always too deep to ride through, there is no road bridge anymore and the guards usually don’t let you ride over the railway bridge anymore.

So we had some breakfast, went back to bed and set our minds on a couple of days waiting around.

Not even half an hour later we got a call from a friend we made in Chara (while looking for a garage for the bikes). “You can cross Kuanda river today, you need to leave right now and be there in 5-6 h, you are going to meet my friend”. This is all the information we got at this point. Strange how things work out in Russia. You just have to go with the flow and stuff sort of happens without having an idea on what exactly is going on.

Looking at the map Kuanda river was about 150 kilometers away, which is at least 5-6 hours of riding, if not double on some parts of the BAM. We didn’t know if we will make it or how/if we will cross the river once we get there. We packed up as fast as possible to not use up valuable riding time. About 20 minutes later we were ready for ride off. The first 50 km or so was fast riding on easy gravel roads. After that the road got worse and we hit the first couple of deep water crossings which slowed us down considerably. Seems like the rain over the last days had not helped the water levels.

At every deeper crossing one has to wade in the cold water checking for the best path through, then ride or push the bike over and afterwards empty your boots – this takes time! After a couple of water crossings we quit emptying the boots altogether again. As if the water was not enough, there were also a lot of desolate bridges. Sometimes just 2-3 planks next to each other to balance the bikes over and massive chunks of bridges missing – we were having a blast!

We made it to the Kuanda river just in time. We waited around at the place where the truck usually loads up bikes until we heard some yelling from the railway bridge. Flo went to investigate and found a couple of guards and some other people already standing on the railway bridge, waving at us. So we rode the bikes up to the bridge and met Ivan, our contact. The guards were already informed that we are coming and radioed ahead to check if there were any trains. At this point we could not believe what was happening – are they really allowing us to ride over the bridge? They then proceeded to tell us how to best cross the railway bridge without crashing the bikes and what to do if a train comes nonetheless. We already knew all this from crossing 10+ bridges, but listened patiently still being mind blown that they’ll actually let us ride over! They made clear that taking a video of this is strictly prohibited, which we completely understood. After crossing the bridge we all shook hands and exchanged good wishes. No money was asked for/accepted. We don’t know on whose good side we got on in Chara but we just want to say thank you!

Some time later we made it to the infamous Vitim bridge and had to make a decision if we camp before the bridge, or cross it right away. But more in the next post!