Sevastopol, Balaklava and the shore of the Black Sea

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October 17th - Arrival and meeting Jason

The train arrived really early in the morning, at about 6am, before dawn in Sevastopol. Fortunately, the town bus starts early and as per-Jason's text I made my way to Malahov Korgahan, where he has got out of bed to meet me, and we headed back for some more sleep, followed by breakfast. He took the afternoon off, I sleep for the morning, and we head out to Balaklava on a series of Mashrutkas after lunch time.

This was the first warm sunny day I'd seen since Slovenia, where I'd lost my sunglasses, so I bought a pair of 15 glivna glasses, for the journey. On the way out to Balaklava, we passed through the Valley of Death (from Tennyson's famous poem, and quite a few Irish songs too). Out in the beautiful harbour valley of Balaklava we hiked over the cliff-side to gold beach, at the bottom of a steep slope. OK, it wasn't gold, it was made of stones, but the water was refreshing and we had a few good swims, interspersed with lying on the beach. There were 2 others on the beach too, a couple, who were hilarious. They had a camera, and she was posing while he took photos of her. Whatever about this being funny, when he started posing for her my sides were spiltting!

After the return hike we grabbed a couple of cool beers in the harbour and watched the sun disappear behind the cliff-side mountains. Then back to Sevastopol to grab some dinner. We met the other peacecore volunteers, a really great American couple who were teaching at a local school, and two girls who were also teaching. Triona, a tall volleyball player and the younger of the two, decided to stay the evening in Jason's, so we grabbed a bottle of Vodka and some juice for cocktails, and headed back to Gilpin manor. The vodka proved to be just the right amount for a lively evening's conversation (interspersed with a nice, warm shower each) without being hungover in the morning and at a relatively modest 1am, Jason headed for bed while myself and Triona shared the fold-out couch.

October 18th - The start of the return leg

While I had promised Jason I'd see some stuff in Sevastopol, it just never happened, and we finally got down to the station to figure out the train times to Odessa at about noon, something that was greatly eased by Triona's ability to speak Russian 😊 Turned out that I had to get to Simferopol first, for a train leaving just before 5, which meant I had to get the bus from Sevastopol at about half two. This gave us time to head down to the market, grab some food for the road and a couple of great hotdogs. Then say goodbyes to Jason and Triona and away to Simferopol.

The bus arrived pretty early, so I wandered about the area of the JD. Vokzal, getting some more food at the markets, and enjoying a coffee with some guys from the Ukrainian army. Then up onto the train for one of the less eventful night journeys of the tour. I had been hoping the train would travel along the coast, but sadly it cut inland, and instead we simply saw more of the same, so I slept....

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