August 2nd A rude awakening

Woken up at 4am by a local squeegee merchant cleaning Marvins windows and demanding money. Having just arrived in Lithuania we didn't have any litas so Neil gave him a handful of zlotys which didnt go down very well, but eventually after a quick lesson in English expletives he left us in peace. Tried to get back to sleep without much success so we decided to get back on the road. Not much to see, just mile after mile of undulating tree lined roads.
Keeping an eye on the fuel we decide to refuel with about 1/4 of a tank left and pull into the first petrol station in a nameless village. Unfortunately they dont take Visa, Amex or American dollars. Our decision not to buy any litas at the border starts to look like a bad one, so we drive on with fingers crossed and just as the fuel situation is looking critical we find another petrol station that takes Visa so we fill Marvin to the brim and buy something alcoholic to take back to our friend Trace, whose family come from Lithuania
We are making good time and soon find ourselves at the Latvian Border and are met by two women border guards, one of whom (bad cop) seems intent on making us suffer, asking endless questions in a language we don't understand, and asking the other woman (good cop questions while waving her hand at all the rubbish piled up in the back of the car. Jan gets good cop on our side and after showing our passports and telling them where we were going, and passing off an MOT certificate as a registration document, we are thro and its only a (comparatively) short drive across Latvia to the Russian border.
About 20 miles short of the border, team 'Plane Broke'(who we had met in a layby earlier for a quick chat), overtake us but we catch them back up and get ready for the border. The first sign of the problems about to face us is the 7km queue of double parked trucks! Driving on we find ourselves at the back of a queue of about 30 cars.
A chat with Hobbsy and Richy of Plane Broke tell us they've heard from a team ahead of us that they took 6 hours to get thro. Jan phones home to update everyone of our progress. Meanwhile the problems with the in car entertainment are sorted and we move forward a few cars at a time to the accompaniment of the Kaiser Chiefs... 'I Predict a Riot' seeming particularly apt.
The description of what happens at the border deserves to have its own post so stay tuned!