It turns out the car headlights didn't lie: the place where we slept was beautiful. Mind you, the day dawned greyer than a soaked stray cat, so we decided to get going early. To make matters worse, we were more cut off from the world than a castaway. Daddy Edu thought we were going to get stopped at every corner, but the stars aligned and we only hit one road block all day. Passport out the window, regulation smile, and everything went swimmingly.

The peace and quiet lasted until we stopped at a roadside rest area to stretch our legs and for Daddy Edu to get moving. Everything was going grand until two stray dogs appeared looking for a bit of trouble. I'm eleven years old now, with plenty of borders behind me, and truthfully, I wasn't in the mood to put up with any adolescent nonsense today. I bared my teeth to mark my territory and, let’s be honest, I think I threw the first bite. A pub brawl broke out that would have put a Western movie to shame. The smaller of the two caught me off guard and took a nip at my back, but luckily it was just a fright, a couple of tough-guy growls, and a lot of someone else's slobber on my back. You don't mess with Chuly!

After midday, having devoured a heap of kilometres, we stopped to eat and rest in our camper. We parked on the banks of the Volga river, somewhere between Ikryanoe and Anatoliya Zvereva. The river was running wild, completely swollen, and had flooded a lot of the surrounding fields. An impressive sight to see from the window while we tucked into our meal.

After filling our bellies, we continued towards Astrakhan and, as soon as we poked our noses into the city... bang! The GPS started with that same madness from Vladikavkaz again. The bloody satellite jammers left us more disoriented than a puppy in a mirror factory. We stopped to refuel at a petrol station and had no clue where we were or where we were going. Lucky that us dogs have instinct and Daddy Edu has eyes: we used the riverbed to get our bearings and, with his finger on the static map on his phone, we managed to stumble our way to the car park in front of the Azimut Hotel.

The place looked like an international convention, it was packed with Chinese motorhomes. Daddy Edu went into the Gellert bar next door to grab a coffee and beg for a bit of internet. What an odyssey. He tried to use the local Wi-Fi, but the Russian government has restricted WhatsApp, YouTube, and Instagram, so that place was more blocked than a door without a handle. Only email was working. Desperate, he bought a new eSIM thinking ours was broken, but the joy lasted exactly three seconds before it died.

To top it all off, there was a sign in the car park forbidding parking between ten at night and six in the morning. Since we didn't fancy arguing with the authorities in Russian, we moved the car to the next car park over. We found another Chinese motorhome and a camper truck from Germany there. Daddy Edu had a chat with the Germans and it’s comforting to know we aren't the only idiots without signal; they were just as cut off as we were.

In the end, we've decided this is a good nest to spend the night. We miraculously managed to pick up the bar's Wi-Fi, so Daddy Edu is currently typing emails like a madman to be able to chat with Uncle Joan in the old-fashioned way. At around ten at night, the Chinese motorhomes from the other car park saw the writing on the wall with the no-parking sign and they’ve all moved over here with us. Right now, we look like a nomadic camp of ten vehicles in the middle of the city. I’m going to close my eyes; defending my canine honour is exhausting.