Lunch break halfway, based on one of those shashlik that only Central Asia can offer



We meet an English guy who has bought a chinese bike in Kyrgyzstan and is riding it around the area: it's nice to see these young guys in this type of travel.
We started much later than them, but the important thing is we started:-)



And then back to Almaty.
Luck helps us: the whole process of registration, which for many was a nightmare, take us only half an hour, thanks to the fact that in the police station Sabrina meets a man who speaks English and helps her filling out the necessary forms.
In the same street where we just registered ourselves we find a hotel that provides the formula "half time half price."
Yes, because in Kazakhstan many hotels offer the chance to get a room for 12 hours, instead of through the night with the usual check in and out, at half price.
The problem is that now it's 18.30 and we have no intention to leave at dawn the following morning.
The hotel has a beautiful outdoor arbor that serves as a bar and restaurant with free wifi, so the solution is really easy: we stay at the bar until 21, then we take our room and the next morning we can leave at a decent time.

1/8/2014

We ask the hotel for directions to a motorcycle mechanic, but they don't know how to help, and advise us to go and ask the motorcycle club of the city, which is not very far away.
It's 10 in the morning and there is nobody, but the lady in the shop next to the club call someone on the phone explaining why we are there, and in two minutes we have the directions we need.
At MyTownMoto we weld the gear lever, so we are finally ready to leave for the north, albeit two days late than originally planned





Leaving the city, we stop to ask for directions, the driver of the car tells us to follow him because he is going in the same direction and so do we.
When we are on the right road, he asks us to wait a minute as he enters the shop of a gas station: he comes out with a map of Kazakhstan in Cyrillic, on which he write his wife's number, who speaks good English, and his, and tells us to call in case we have any problem.
Also asks us if we have a Kazakh number and when we answer no, jumps out even a brand-new sim.
Thanks Roman! Meeting hospitable and caring people like you is why we like to travel these countries, even before the beauty of the places.