The air conditioning in the Earthroamer gave us a good night’s sleep. At about 2am Dick had a peep outside and there was a big bus stopped beside us with all of the passengers inspecting the Earthroamer.
We were on the road at 8.40am. It was a sunny day, 75 degrees F with a good road.
Every now and again we saw beehive shaped domes which we think might have been graves.
We were now following the double electrified track of the Astana – Almaty rail line.
Occasionally we would see a goods or passenger train. To the south east of us was the magnificent Lake Balkhash. The bit we were beside is fresh water whereas the north eastern end is salt water.
We left the highway and drove down to the lake front at Kehti.
Dick tasted the water and said it was fresh. On the lakeside was a small village where we were greeted by a fisherman in a small row boat, a young family with their 4 month old baby son, and a friendly motorcyclist with a sidecar. When we took his photograph he promptly got his cell phone camera out of his pocket and took photos of us with a big smile.
Back on the M36 highway every few kilometres was a small stall holder selling dried fish. We stopped at one and a charming Kazakh lady showed us her fish for sale.
We decided not to buy any but we did give her some money and thanked her for allowing us to take photographs of her.
From this point on, the road became worse and worse – so bumpy that 60 to 65 kph was all we could do. We should mention it had a good bitumen cover but seemed to have sealed in the ruts.
We passed a family all riding on a motorbike with a side car – the driver looked rather young!
The country had now turned to dry arid and the temperature was now 99 degrees. We stopped for a quick lunch because it was so hot and got going again, back onto the bumpy road.
We passed a herd of camels happily grazing on the grass and then stopped at the Kurty River to have a cup of tea.
Kazakh families also came down to the river in their cars to have a swim and cool off. They were all very friendly, with one family giving Dick a Kazakh cap and a scarf for Pip as a gift.
They were all amazed to meet someone from Australia. While we were there a horseman appeared over the hill and brought a herd of horses down to drink.
It was still 98 degrees F when we left at 4.20pm and headed for Almaty about 100 kilometres away.
The road had improved greatly so we sat on 98 kph, and 80kms from Almaty we saw the snow covered mountains called the Zailiysky Alatau.
About 30 kms from Almaty we picked up a young hitchhiker who didn’t speak a word of English but wore a very nice smelling aftershave.
Within 30 minutes we were in a horrendous traffic jam as we made our way through Saturday afternoon traffic into the city. We had phoned Rustem from the Australian Consulate and had decided to meet him there – a modern office building in the northern part of the city.
How did we get there you may ask? Very simple. We handed our phone to the hitchhiker who spoke to Rustem in Russian (or maybe in Kazakh) and he then proceeded to give us directions by hand signals, which got us close to the correct area. Our hitchhiker friend asked a women pedestrian for some directions and she promptly got into the Earthroamer as well and got us a little closer to our destination.
With both of our passengers speaking Russian we ended up in front of a huge building which certainly wasn’t the Australian Consulate – it turned out to house the American Consulate. By then Rustem, after about the fourth phone call, told us to stay put and he would come and find us – which he did.
We are now typing this day’s events from the car park outside the Australian Consulate in Almaty.
We had invited Rustem out for dinner but it was his birthday and of course he wanted to celebrate with his wife and children. The temperature has dropped dramatically this evening and there is a cool breeze from the mountain tops. We like Kazakhstan and the Kazakh people and are very happy to have completed this stage of our around the world drive.
We now plan to spend the next few days here organising the servicing of the Earthroamer and seeing the sights of Almaty. Of the 40,075kms around the world, we have now covered 56.5% of the distance.
Today 505kms 22,634kms since Anchorage, Alaska
4189kms total for Stage 5
Click here for the next day– sightseeing around Almaty.
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