Day Thirty-One: Dropping like flies

The current situation being of utmost hilarity and importance I will quickly re-cap the last couple of days events so as to swifty remark on the incident that has just occured.
Make yourselves comfy and get a cup of tea.

After the lake at Oral the driving through Kazakhstan has not been too eventful. We slept in a lavendar field not too far away from a little Kazak hamlet, slightly on edge and fearful due to most of the locals advising us that we were in Bandit Country and the people were as bad as the roads. However we woke to find everything still intact and as we left it. Unfortunately just to keep us on edge it seems, our little Micra, now christened Michaela (better late than never) decided that the battery water wasn't to her taste and failed to start. We were still able to jump start but it became apparent that as the quality of the tarmac worsened this would not be an option and so we would have to get a new battery.

Being at thehead of the convoy, as well as being invigorating and daring also has its drawbacks. It mean we are sitting ducks for the police. We got pulled over for a second time, but this time we were well under the speed limit and the lights were on. The other three cars drove well out of fining range but after showing our documents to the police it appeared he wasn't interested in a fine or bribe so waved us on.

Quite keen to shower and wash our clothes we stayed that night in a hotel in Aktobe. We found a restaurant with a table big enough for all eight of us and dined seated on cushions on the floor inside a curtained summer house type structure. After that we all had a few drinks and went bowling which was pretty amusing as a result of the pins dropping sporadically at the end of the lane and occasionally starting a lucky players go with less than 10 pins.

Yesterday due to finding wifi and shopping facilities near the hotel we didn't get on the road until well after midday. Yet again another friendly local stopped to chat to us and kindly drove us to the nearest place likely to have a new battery for us and a new tyre for the Matiz. After a bit of searching we bought a new battery for about £43 and it seem to have done the trick! Touch Wood. The Matiz is still without a spare and you would have thought this would lead them to drive with the utmost care and attention. Far from it. We drove until about eight then pulled off the main road to seek refuge amoungst some rocky hills. Finding the perfect spot concealed from the main road required a little off roading but the cars were all up for the challenge. Perfect spot found, tents pitched and pasta, on the menu again but in addition, for a change we cracked open the vodka watermelon! Unfortunately for me (having the eighth nearest to the vodka feeding hole) this particular watermelon did not have an unquencheable thirst for booze and so the only part saturated with the spirit was that immediately underneath the vodka hole.

This morning yet again we had the best intentions of getting up early and doing some serious miles however Kazakhstan obviously had some oher things planned. The morning began with James making molotov cocktails. For those not in the know (like myself until this point) this involves putting petrol in a bottle, shoving a doused rag in the top, lighting it and lobbing it so that the petrol satisfyingly bursts up in flames upon impact. Surprisingly after two sucessful attempts no injuries were incured and with the boys lust for danger temporarily satiated we decended from our quarry campsite.

I assume that due to the poor condition of the roads, or perhaps the need for police to check the underside of suspected Mafia vehicles, there are quite frequently at the side of the road, concrete vehicle ramps which rise up to a flat surface about four foot high with a gap down the middle for vehicle inspection. It was one of these particular ramps at the bottom of our campsite that claimed the front passenger wheel of the red saxo. We were just waiting for everyone to decend onto the main road when we saw it happen. It climbed diagonally for about 5 seconds and before we could shout or grab a camera an almighty scrape split the air as the hub cap frisbeed off the wheel and it teetered into the gap down the middle. After a suitable amount of footage,photo taking and mockery the boys did manage to lift the car out of the gap and safely reverse it back down the ramp. Surprisingly no obvious damage was apparent and as we were all about to let out a sigh of relief James drew our attention to the Matiz which appeared to have weed itself with all the excitement. The short offroad trip accompanied by the dizzying rally driving cost them their petrol tank. It now had a small  puncture which (depending on how you look at it) was rather unfortunate as it meant that unless anyone was willing to inhale vast amounts of petrol fumes to cyphen the fuel from the tank we would have to wait whilst it slowly dripped out.

In the end this took over two hours but we kept up the morale by completing the paint job of the union jack on top of Dupont Racing's car, making a brew and in Jame's case dressing up in a camoflage morph suit and prancing along the car roof tops. After a long while the tank was drained enough for the mending to begin but as I am not particularly well versed in mechanical lingo I will just say that I belive some sort of heavy duty putty was stuck to the hole. They filled the tank, it appeared to hold and so we finally hit the road.

Victory was short lived as we must have only driven for around 3 minutes when we saw the Saxo pull over. It was overheating. Apparently dropping its nose onto a concrete ramp didn't improve performance and we had to wait for it to cool down. We finally moved on a few minutes later and are now searching for a garage to fix the spare wheel for the Matiz.

We had hoped to be able to make a detour down to Almaty but at the rate we are moving currently we will be lucky enough to get out of Russia before our visas expire. We also need to find a police station that can Register us as apparently if we try to leave the country without registering we will incur a hefty fine. Not been able to find anywhere over the weekend so hopefully we can find somewhere today and then actually drive somewhere!

Morale: Average - eager to make some progress
Car: Not wanting to say too much but the Battery appears to be working well. No other complaints
Current Thought: I wonder why the shops in this town, that appear to just be doorways with shelves inside, sell only Bread, Fanta, Crisps, Vodka and Ciggarettes. I would love a cold drink.
Country Count: Still in Kaz!
Miles: 5,857

Update: Since writing this we have been told by the police that the only place that can register us now is Aktobe (where we have just come from) as if we proceed to Astana we will still have to pay a fine. Considering that is about a five hour drive in the wrong direction it's probably not going to happen. Stay Tuned.