Leaving Poland and heading into Belarus two days ago has been a great transition so far, although it has also opened our eyes to what we can expect ahead.

Our team ran to the Poland/Belarus border on the 9pm-3am shift, arriving at the frontier in the middle of the night to find there was still a half-mile long line of vehicles waiting to pass. This was expected to be one of the toughest border crossings on our trip, but it actually went very smoothly. We spent the night at a very rural set of cabins that the staff had been dubbing “survival camp”, because of the very “basic” accommodations there. Because they set our expectations so low, we were actually pleasantly surprised with the rustic housing and had a good laugh before heading to bed when Lansing announced to the 8 of us staying there, “OK, lights out at 10pm, we’ve got a big day of archery and canoing tomorrow.”

So far, I’ve found Belarus running far more enjoyable than Poland. Poland was not a highlight in terms of running for two main reasons: the horrible traffic on rough roads, and the not-so-friendly locals. Clearly, we’ve had very limited experiences in both countries, but the people we’ve interacted with along our journey in Belarus have been far more friendly and supportive than in Poland. For example, on a number of occasions in Poland, at road-side stops and gas stations, we had a number of unpleasant interactions, including some fairly significant verbal harassment at one restaurant. In Belarus, we’ve experienced something very different --- cheers from people on the side of the road and even a police escort along the way. It also helps that the roads we’ve been running on are pot-hole-less and near-empty of traffic.

The initial bliss of Belarus was tempered by a reality check when we arrived in Orsha today, though. The hotel and town were pretty bleak. When we pulled up in front of our hotel at 5am, we noticed a man walking past our van drinking a beer out of a brown paper bag. The next day we realized that daytime beer drinking was the norm. What we realized is that there just aren’t that many tourists in Belarus, so hotels are far and few between. The Orsha experience has been a reality check because we know that their will be many more Orshas along the route from here through China. In fact, we expect there will be tougher spots, which is part of the fun and challenge of running around the world!

Entering Belarus we’ve felt like we’re really heading into a new phase of this journey – a more difficult phase.