A short hop through Kazakhstan

Hello!

Apologies for the silence, this has been down to very poor internet availability in both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.  When I finally got good internet in China I found that BlogSpot was blocked - but more about that in the China post.

Anyway, when I last left you I was getting ready to leave Uzbekistan and travel into Kazakhstan - another border crossing.  Given our previous border crossing experiences we erred on the side of caution and left early.  We pulled up at the border just after 8 am only to find that it was closed to vehicles and we had to go to another border checkpoint 2 hours drive away!  Not a great start.  Once we got to the second border at around 10am the fun really began.  It was atrocious, with people physically pushing and shoving their way through.  We made our now familiar Odyssey wall to stop people getting through before us but at that point it proved to be in vain as, due to all the pushing, they closed the door.  It was boiling heat and we had to wait around for a but fortunately for us Svetlana, our new Kazakh guide, had crossed over to help us and she quickly arranged for them to open up a separate queue for us which only made the local push and shove even more!  The border guards were shouting angrily at them and we joked that they were telling them to look at the nice orderly way us westerners queued!

Once we were stamped out of Uzbekistan we walked the short distance across no man's land to the Kazakhstan border.  It was empty because they had closed the door at the Uzbek side so we walked in, got our passports stamped and were out the other end in less than half an hour - not bad for 22 people!  Could getting in to Kazakhstan be that easy?  Obtaining the visas had been arduous and expensive for some of the group so they were surprised at how easy that end of the crossing had been.  Unfortunately we had still to wait on Calypso and driver Simon getting through so we walked through the gates and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  After a while most of us decided to change some money and go and have lunch in a small truckers café whilst we waited as at least it was out of the intense sun.  In total we waited 6 hours on the truck and by this point it was 8pm.  That meant that the border crossing had taken 11 hours from when we got to the border where we were turned away (our clocks had been moved forward an hour going into Kazakhstan).  A new Odyssey record.

By this point everyone was tired and a bit cranky so we quickly found a place to camp and settled in for the night.

                                                   Sunset view from tent

The next day we made our way to Aksu-Zhabagly National Park.  It was a long drive but worth it as the view was stunning.

Scenic lunch stop by the lake....

 

 

Happy camper

The next day some guy set off on horse treks, others went hiking and some hung out around our new campsite an hours drive from the one above.  It was glorious sunshine and everyone got a little sunburnt!

 

 

 

Next day we headed back down the mountains to a small remote village where we got to meet some locals and learn a bit about their way of life.  It's hard going - they only have running water for 2 hours a day!  They were very friendly and willing to pose for photos whilst letting us try some of their local dried cheese balls - yuck!

 

 

 

 

 

Svetlana showing Andy how to make fermented mare's milk

 

 

 

 

 

Mahala trying the dried cheese ball....her face says it all

 

 

After leaving the village we dropped off Svetlana our guide and headed to the town of Merke, 20km from the Kyrgyzstan border so we could make an early start for our next border crossing in the morning. It was a lovely spot beside a river which we all used to get washed and a cool down!

 

 

 

 

Overall it was only 4 nights in Kazakhstan but the very small part of the country we saw was stunning and the sun was shining - what more can you want??

Kyrgyzstan blog to follow......