simonandlisa


paper work and frowned. After a few tense moments, he shook his head and waved his hand at us. Not sure what this meant, we gingerly tiptoed outside. The barrier was raised and—bloody hell—we were in Russia. The first three miles from the border was


a poorly tarred road which crumbled into loose sand and rock. I went ahead, aware that Lisa was looking at my body language to determine the difficulty of the track in front. I urgently tried to recall all that we’d been taught at the BMW Off-Road Course


Our campsite in Norway.


Lake, the spiritual home of the Sámi people, who have inhabited Northern Scandinavia for more than 9,000 years. It is one of the most serene places on earth. It was also the perfect place to recover from the grueling Arctic leg of our trip. After a few rest- ful days and with our energy and body temperatures rekindled, we waved goodbye to Lapland and made our way back into Norway’s north- east and to the small border town of Kirkness en-route to Russia.


Border crossing The western Russian leg of our trip was going to be a test. Lisa and I had already flirted with needling tension as we endured a few hours of angry outbursts and imaginative expletives. On bad days, we’d keep score as to who won the most “f–k-offs” for the day. We thought of it as rough verbal foreplay. Though we’d been together for 12


years, we knew we were going to have to rely on each other more now than ever before. Even though we were see- ing the world, our relationship was becoming more insular and poten- tially more explosive. Unable to inter- pret the written word (Russia uses the Cyrillic alphabet), we would battle to


Near Red Square. 52 BMW OWNERS NEWS February 2017


make ourselves understood in a very alien country—and would only have each other to vent our frustrations. Back in 2003, the Russian border


lived up to its formidable reputa- tion with razor-wire fences, cam- eras and Kalashnikov-toting guards in green uniforms to ensure nobody wandered off. A chisel-faced Rus- sian behind a grey desk checked our


At the Russian border.


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