Mmmm... breakfast kebabs
14 AugHeaded for a breakfast kebab with Tim this morning. They call them Doner kebabs, and they are the cheapest meal in Almaty, but they’re a bit different to the English, Australian, or Turkish variety. They come with your normal beef, pickle, onion, and potato chips, all wrapped up in the bread. Not quite your Kellogs Cornflakes, but not bad all the same.
Tim’s friend Brian kindly allows us to use the internet in his office at the University to send the blog and to make some Skype calls. Then I change the spark plugs in the car, and check the tappets. We were hoping maybe a tappet problem had led to the decline in the sound of our engine, but once again they check out fine.
It’s sad to say goodbye to Tim. There has been lots of tales of woe from the rally, and they are a part of the adventure, but Tim’s seems particularly heart breaking. Such a small error leading to massive headaches.
We see Team Yak to the Future outside our dormitories. They’re fresh from an engine rebuild in their Citroen 2CV in Tashkent.
Around 2pm we hit the highway, bound for Semey which is 1100km away. We’re expecting this to be a long, boring grind. If we can make Semey the day after tomorrow, we’ll be on our schedule. Unfortunately we miss out on seeing Charyn Canyon, which is 200km east of Almaty, but a 400km round trip is the last thing our car needs right now. I don’t think too many Mongol teams would consider going there anyway.
We’ve got fresh bread and some cheese for lunch on the way. We haven’t had tasty cheese for a long time, and we love it.
Stephen decides to check his Russian visa on the road (they say check it when you get it, but better late than never), and discovers it expires a full 4 days earlier than mine! This is only one day after our scheduled leaving date, and leaves little margin for error. All we can do is push on. If we break down in Russia he’ll just have to hitch a ride to Mongolia, and I’ll have 4 extra days to try and fix the car and meet him over the border.
We stop for fuel and a mad petrol station attendant accuses Stephen of being from Afghanistan due to his beard, makes a comment on circumcision, then something about chopping his feet off. He is a barrel of laughs, but we’ve got no idea what he’s on about.
The road gradually degrades, but when we stop to camp by the side of the road, it is still good enough for 60km/h. We have already done 300km o the 1100.
It’s been a different Kazakhstan. We were ready for raging 45 dedree temperatures, and endless deserts, as we experienced last time. Instead today has had some partially green hills, groves of trees, and some creekbeds with water in them. We have been over some small mountains and then proceeded with the mountains on our right for most of the afternoon.
