11/8/16

Good morning!
Well, maybe for the camels starting their daily walk, for sure not for my fellow travelers who spended 40 minutes to get 3 coffee and have faces like they have been beaten all night (and I was the one who slept on the floor, not them)





A chat with 2 Russian bikers and we continue in the desert until Aralsk





Aral was a port, a port on a lake so great that many called it a sea, then the Soviets decided to withdraw the water of its two tributaries to irrigate cotton fields, and in a few years, the lake dried up almost completely .
Aral has a port, but does not have a lake.







Until a few years ago the road that passed here, the M32, was in poor condition and the city seemed doomed to an inexorable end, then the road has been reconstructed and has again become the main north south road of the country, in the meanwhile, the Kazakh government has carried out a series of investments to save the small part of the lake remained, apparently successfully.
Fish were reintroduced and it seems that in the coming years, with the construction of a new dam, the water will come back to the port of Aral.

We avoid the Aral Hotel, famous for being for years the only one in the city and defined by anyone a infamous place, and we take a room in the newest Hotel Altair, near the station.
It's early afternoon when we finally give some meaning to the knobbly tyres that we have on our bikes and head to Zhalanash to visit the boat cemetery.







Roberto exits from the street into the desert: since days he says that he does not like the hole-bathrooms and that "I like to do it in the open air".
We leave him alone and continue, then comes the cigarette break.
One, two, three cigarettes and Roberto doesn't arrive: "something must have happened," says Sabrina.
We go back and at some point I see Roberto's bike on the road, he in the field next. At first I think that the attack must be very strong if forced him to stop every few meters, but when I get closer I realize the flat tire ...







Since we are smart to travel light we unloaded all the luggage in the city, and along with the luggage tools, pump and inner tubes.
A few kilometers before we saw a small village of 3 houses and we go to seek for help, leaving Roberto to familiarize with the local wildlife.



The camel man starts telling us no, then perhaps there is his friend who has the car, then the wife of his friend does not want her husband to take the car ... "it will be a question of money", I think, let's hear how much he ask us...
5000 tenge, 13 Euros, is the request, made almost with shame, because it's probably disproportionate, to bring the bike to the city.
I would have accepted even if it had been four times as much...

12/8/2016

Second attempt, but more or less at the same point of yesterday we again stopped.
This time, however, we are the helpers, not the helped: a load of people on a van stop us because they need to inflate their tires.
This time we are equipped and the 10 euros worth decathlon pump makes the job...

Before greeting them, we ask where they are headed: "to the sea!"











Once in Zhalanash we ask where to go to some kids, and they are too happy to jump on the bike to show us the way











Of the boats, actually, doesn't remain much: time ago there were many more and undamaged, then they have been gradually dismantled and sold by weight, but they still can make some shadow















Since we are in the bed of a lake that no longer exists and has become a desert and the heat is cruel, Roberto decides that get stuck in the sand is a great way to do some motion...
(It must a family habit, I think, remembering a trip to Tunisia which I did a few years ago with his brother)





Back in town we attract the attention of some local who helps us to find the store where supply us with water and we ask for information on the way to the sea, where we have now decided to go

There it is! It's behind that sign!













It's now afternoon and it's time to go back...