The sea is dry, and so is the humour
29 JulUp at 5am today, and after a bit of Kazakh muesli (the supplies from the UK have run out) it was back on the road.
The road works finished, and the remains of the old road were there for us to drive on. It was rubbish though, and we used it only to cross bridges and gullys. During my stint at the wheel we crossed a dodgy dodgy bridge. It was of concrete construction, and was suffering badly from concrete cancer. It had big concrete balustrades that ran the length of the bridge. Maybe 6 of them side by side. On one side of the bridge one of these had completely fallen off, and if you drove on that side of the road, it would definitely collapse. Cement blocks had been put there to stop you from doing this. There were some pot holes in the bridge, big enough for our tyres, and through them you could see the water running in the river below. We drove tentatively across, and then walked back for a closer look.
The bridge
It was our lucky day, as the last 100km before Aral were good bitumen. We’d bumped our way over 300km of terrible road. We arrived in Aral around 2pm.
It’s the thought that counts! A bad piece of English brings out Tim’s Neanderthal side.
Aral is hard to describe. It’s a reasonably big town, which used to sit next to the Aral sea. During the Russian era, the river that feeds it was redirected further north, for agricultural purposes. The sea dried up, and now the town of Aral sits next to a few rusted out boats. There are a couple of pools of stagnant water, that smell pretty bad. The salt has come up through the dirt, and sits on the surface. There is an old fisheries plant that has been abandoned, and a touristy looking building on the old foreshore has collapsed and been left in ruins. There are some boats on pedestals, and a man has set up his house underneath one, stealing power from a nearby telegraph pole. This is an environmental disaster of massive proportions.
The people we meet are not very nice, and make fun of us when we ask questions about the road ahead, and where we can get some good quality fuel. We get in trouble for where we park our car.
We take a walk out to some of the boats that are run aground. The heat is unbelievable. In 20 minutes we are completely drenched in sweat. I have a dizzy spell when I get back to the car.
Let’s get out of this place is the general consensus. The best fuel we can get is 93, but the sketch reports on the road seem to indicate that it is in good condition all the way to Qizilorda, which is some 470km away.
A couple of pictures of the Aral sea.
On the way out of town I spot some writing on the road. It’s been spray painted in black, and something catches my eye. I turn back for a closer look. It reads ‘Mongol Rally’. Someone is in front of us on this road. We assume it is the Spanish who passed us back in the Ukraine.
The heat is extreme, and there are long hills. The car starts to ping from the poor quality fuel. We stop and retard the timing. We realize it’s actually been pinging for a while, but we’ve failed to pick it up, mainly due to the noise from whipping cross winds, and our delirious state from the heat. This is bad news, as it’s actually been sounding pretty rough since Aktobe, and maybe this is because we’ve damaged it from pinging. We had a knocking noise when it was cold in England, and now it’s there all of the time. Tim thinks it’ll keep going for another 10000 km’s, but I wouldn’t be putting money on it. We now have an agreement to drive it as easily as possible. It still has good power, good oil pressure, and isn’t burning much oil, so surely it’s got a bit longer left in it.
Around 8pm we pull off to camp. We are incredibly filthy and sweaty, and the camping spot is low lying and looks like we’ll get mosquitos. We are only 120km’s from Qizilorda and the possibility of a hotel and a shower. I propose we continue in the dark to Qizilorda, and we set off. This is the wrong decision. The road has no markings at all, is not very wide, and keeps varying in width. The washers are broken. We made a new lid for the washer bottle from remouldable plastic in Brackley. You heat the plastic to 70 degrees, mould it, and then it sets hard. Only problem is at 15mph in a dessert the engine gets pretty hot. The remains of the washer cap are in a pool on the top of the bottle. There are an unbelievable amount of bugs hitting the windscreen, and without driving lights we can’t see anything. I narrowly miss hitting a stray cow. The SJ has horrible lights, and on high beam they are pointing at the sky. For 40km’s I struggle behind the wheel. When cars come the other way I can’t see the road at all. We’d previously added more 93 fuel to the tank, and now the engine starts to ping again. The driving is dangerous and the engine is suffering, so we make an excellent decision to stop and park on a paddock next to the road. There is no cover from passing cars, and the ground has been trampled by cows. It’s some sort of a marsh and when we turn our lantern on millions of bugs are attracted. The owner of the land appears from the darkness and looks at us menacingly. Tim trys to incicate a tent with his hands, and thank goodness the man nods and walks away. We can’t cook any food because of the insects. We pitch the tents in the dark and eat some stale bread for dinner (after already eating it for lunch)! It’s been baked for 2 days in the car. Tim and I open a bag of marshmallows and eat it with a spoon. It’s all melted together, but is quite tasty. With our ravenous hunger partially alleviated, we call it a day.
Picture of the campsite, taken the next morning
