Almati Bound










Headed for Almati

This morning we started about 1200km from Almati and, as the roads now seem much better, we think that we can get with in spitting distance of Almati today. Wrong. After about 12 hours of driving, as much driving as our convoy can do before everyone starts complaining, we are still over 500km out. Construction and small towns are really slowing us down; it will need another full day on the road. On the up-side, we are out of the barren desert and passing through lots of neat little towns and over some mountains. Also, the air temp has been less than 40 degrees making the miles much more comfortable.

Almati, Aug 14
We set off again with an alpine start for Almati, just over 500km away. Things go fairly well and we get close in about 9 hours of driving, then run into a police checkpoint where the military tries to do nothing short of rob us, making up fines and taking things from the cars. After a long while of back and forth we leave down about 5 dollars each and one guy had a multi tool stolen. We are getting better at dealing with the police and army guys but we still have a lot to learn! In Almati we check into our budget hotel that is an ancient concrete bunker from the soviet days - quite the place! It is downtown however and we meet up with a bunch of people including an extremely nice Kazakh who studies in England and is in Almati for a few days by himself. He became our tour guide and translator. Had a great night, met a bunch of people and few of us went to bed before the sun came back up.