Every now and again on an adventure like this you’re bound to find yourself wondering what the hell it is you’ve gotten yourself into and how you’re gonna get yourself out. Those were my exact thoughts this morning as I sat in the Ukrainian police station being arrested for impersonating a police officer. The explanation for why we had a red flashing police light in the car was simple and innocent (it’s just there for the pics) but to a crooked Ukrainian cop it’s a tempting invitation to scare the crap out of us with threats of years in a Ukrainian prison. It’s of course a big game and every word they utter is designed to increase the size of the inevitable bribe they’re slowly working towards. The price tag for this episode was “everything you got” which fortunately came out to just 52 euros after all pockets were emptied in front of them. Because the police stops here are purely random (not based on doing anything wrong), it’s a nearly impossible game to avoid. You avoid it by not ever driving in Ukraine, or by avoiding Ukraine completely, and that’s exactly our advice to you.

The Black Sea Run finished on Saturday night with an amazing closing party at the Kazantip music festival. Every year the worlds best electronic DJ’s descend on Kazantip for a week-long beach festival that attracts many of Russia’s most rich and beautiful (think of it as a place where Russian beauty meets Russian oligarch beast). It’s an amazing spectacle of light and sound, and the eclectic vibe is impossible to describe for those who haven’t been here, but it’s completely unfiltered fun and a great way to wrap up the rally. Hope the pics can do it some justice.

We enter our final days in Crimea now where we’re relaxing with our friend Jimmy Swift who is the rally organizer and who will be joining us on Tamarisk where the three of us return to next Tuesday. Jimmy’s been talking up his fishing skills and researching bait/hook combinations for the western Med, so we can’t wait to see him try this out. We are saying goodbye to Ukraine with mixed feelings for the place and all it’s road bumps, corrupt cops, pickled dishes, and other quirks. We’re craving a little civilization after the last couple weeks but I got a funny kind of feeling this won’t be our last visit to the place we call the “wild wild east”.

Whenever things are going really well, that’s a sure sign things are about to get worse. We didn’t realize that was the case as we breezed out of Macedonia and across Bulgaria to the black sea resort town of Varna. Everything was peachy, topped off with a rest day on the beach and a regrouping of most of the teams on the Black Sea Run, plus a two day reunion with the Legend who took a bus to meet us there.

When we left Varna yesterday it was our last big day of driving as we headed north across Romania and Moldova and into Ukraine. This is where the roads and the borders become more challenging and where our problems started yesterday. Our car has temporary Hungarian plates valid for 30 days, and the border officials in Ukraine, we discovered yesterday, have a big problem with plates like this. Almost all problems in Ukraine can be solved with a well placed 20 euro bill (we’ve heard), but this plates problem is unfixable even with several of the far more coveted 100 denominated bills (we have reason to believe).

Undeterred by our rejection at the first Ukrainian border we turned back into Moldova and began driving to other Ukrainian borders further north. By the time yesterday finally ended (which was actually 5am this morning) we had been driving for over 20 hours, covered 700 kilometers, slid off the road into the ditch once, nearly killed one dog and one fox (no harm done), cleared passport control 14 times, and been rejected entry into Ukraine three times.

Trapped in Moldova, our survival instincts kicked in and we headed to the bus station this morning to investigate our options. After finding tickets to Odessa , Ukraine (where the other teams are) for 8 euros each, the decision was a no brainer. Our beloved Volkswagen is now an orphan and sits abandoned on the road directly in front of the bus terminal (see pic) as we bounce down the Ukrainian roads for the first time in the back of an eastbound bus. We do this with mixed emotions – we’re happy to be inside Ukraine finally, and grateful to the other teams who will take us the rest of the way to Crimea, but we do miss our loyal Volkswagen (probably much more than it misses us).