When we arrived in Aktau, Kazakhstan; we pulled up to the Marriott and the doorman waved me off to go around back with a scowl on his face. I looked like a homeless woman. When we arrived in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan I requested a room for 2 nights and the desk clerk said “one night only” waving a nyet nyet finger in my face. It was as if she was letting us in only because her ethics or religion or cultural hospitality could not let her turn away a visitor, but there was no way our kind of riff raff was going to be able to stay for a while. She later relented and let us stay for two nights. 🙂 When you drive through the desert with the windows down you get filthy. My hair gets matted from the wind whipping in the window. We get in the shower and the water runs off us in brown streaks.
I expected a reality shift during this trip. A reset of what I considered normal or comfortable. Now a good road is a blessing and a half. A toilet that is ceramic (squat or not) brings relief. A clean shirt, folded, fluffy, from the hotel laundry service brought tears to my eyes. I sat and held it up against my cheek and savored it’s softness and clean smell. (We’ve been doing our laundry in sinks and tubs of hotel rooms. Works fine but things don’t seem to get really clean and never fluffy). A really, really, cold drink… is an amazing and special treat that is savored. Wifi is a treat and when it is fast is a dream come true. The kindness of strangers when you are at your wits end trying to communicate without speaking a word of russian, is appreciated beyond what words can describe.
About a week ago we ran into the BSM team, Joe and Tom and since then have run into more. It’s like a funnel now. After Almaty we go to Semey and from there to Barnaul Russia and into Mongolia; there’s only one road and we will all be on it for two days or so. Meeting other teams we find that they are all suffering from the same What day is it? What country are we in? What currency are we using? confusion that we have. Since everyone we have met is younger than us it is clearly not age related confusion but rally confusion.
We have also run accross teams doing other rallys. We met three italians doing a rally that started in Milan and ends in Dushanbe. They were being arrested for not registering in Kazakhstan and staying for more than five days. That was at the Uzbekistan/Kazakhstan border; four hours of the most insane, time wasting, inefficent, ridiculous beauracracy ever. Although Turkmenistan would probably come in first for lousy border paperwork plus it cost us $208 in various fees. Coming into Uzbekistan there is a “Doctor” and if you look sick they force you to undergo and pay for “medical exam”. I was running a fever and coughing and trying like heck not to cough. The border guards are now asking for “American Souvenirs”. They want our rally T-shirts and look all around the car for something juicy they can snag. It’s pretty darn funny. We just laugh and refuse.
We camped under the stars and watched the Perseid meteor shower, that was awsome. Now we are in Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan. It’s gorgeous with the snowcapped Altay mountains in the background. We took a tram up a hill and visited the history museum and saw beautiful gold artifacts from Scythian burial sites of 400 BC. We are gearing up for our last push here. Three more days or so and we will be in Russia.
I cannot caption the photos individually from my phone. So here are the descriptions:
1. These men pulled alongside us on the road and relentlessly asked us to have tea and lunch with them. Jim thought it really meant vodka… He was right!
2. The path to the bathroom at the restaurant.
3. The bathroom.
4. After our bbq lunch we saw this car on the road. Hmmmm wonder how much of the meat we have eaten arrived like this. Best not to ponder.
