Guardian: Marble Caves

These guardians may also seem familiar to the ravenous readers who recall the Indiana Andrushenko Escapade. First there was the man who spoke not a word of English yet pulled over to pick me up soon after I'd stubbornly refused a taxi and set off walking. Insisting there would be no charge he drove me over two kilometres of hot, dry, boring road that would have wasted energy needed later in the day. Leaving me all smiles in the village I just so happened to meet the excellent English speaking woman from St. Petersburg who began describing the complicated route just to the start of the hiking path before giving up and asking very apologetically if I could hold on while she completed her errands. My alternatives were to look for another friendly English speaker with intimate knowledge of the trail to the cave in this village of 85 people, head into the wilderness without a map never to be seen again, give up and double back, sit in the dust and pout. Of course I could wait! Mere minutes later she rejoined me and again began describing the route as we walked and once we cornered she pointed and noting my seemingly permanent perplexion smiled and said "come on" and carried on well past her destination to baby me onto the trail. Hours later down this very same trail I would meet a young couple who often went romping in this area. Again the explanations without a map were not going well, especially now with 6 hours of first hand knowledge as to how easy it was to just hike and hike so they asked me to join them even sharing their lemonade in exchange for my crumby biscuits. Then they not only walked me back to the road and drove me miles back to civilisation but went out of their way to pass by the cave so I could recognise it but also went off-roading to indicate the shortcut to me. "To think a Canadian boy in the mountains of Ukraine in the winter!" they each exclaimed in their own way, bless them all.