After deciding that there was no way we were going to drive back to Aktobe to avoid a fine that we may potentially be able to get out of, we continued on our way. Basically the logic was that it would cost us more in time and petrol to go back and register with the police and we wouldn't even be able to get back there before the end of the day so we thought there was little point.
The further we headed into Kazakhstan the worse the weather seemed to get. Corn fields stretched endlessly either side of us and the flat land made finding a concealed camping spot increasingly difficult. We drove until dusk when the rain began. Justin located a track from the main road that curved round a lightly less flat bit of land and offered a marginal amount of coverage so we set up camp. One of the brilliant things about traveling in a large convoy is that between you, you have everything you need. Within moments of parking in the torrential downpour we had JP and Dave's tarp being stretched out and propped up by James and Sams bamboo pole, a windbreak was hammered in to stop rain from coming in at the sides, lanterns were put up in the middle and the sides of the tarp were ropes down. Within about 20 minutes we were all huddled under our makeshift gazebo cooking dinner, which for everyone was pasta yet again.
We woke the next morning to find that the wind had cruelly torn the tarp in half. But things could be worse, it had stopped raining and the corn fields made for some beautiful photos (which I will try to add when we get some wifi). We drove on in the direction of Astana hoping that if the roads were good we might be able to make it there by nightfall. We should know by now that the roads are never good. We made a pit stop in a little town for James a Sam to try again to get their tyre mended. Unfortunately it was not possible but they did have a spare tyre which the garage was able to put on the wheel giving them one spare wheel with a fresh tyre.
We continued on but realising we wouldn't make it to Astana decided to try and camp near and enormous lake shown on our map. Whilst searching for the lake we got pulled over by the police again. He didn't speak a word of English and didn't seem that interested in our documents so we assumed we was interested in where we were headed and made several guestures at the lake on the map. He appeared to understand and headed back to his car motioning us to follow. We were either all arrested or he was going to show us the way. Thankfully it was the latter and a few minutes later he waved us off in the right direction. Unfortunately when we arrived not only was the lake incredibly depleted and unimpressive, for some reason we weren't actually allowed down to it so we drove a little way back to some sandy hills and camped there overlooking what was left of the water. This particular spot was also inhabited by an enormous fleet of mosquitoes causing the group to cover every bit of visible flesh (apart from the eyelids) with fabric.
The evenings now getting decidedly colder after being fed and watered we retired to the warmth of our sleeping bags.
Wednesday was of course my Birthday! For the first time I decided not to be the alarm clock for the group, it being far too cold to get out of my cocoon, and allowed myself a lie in. A few minutes later I was asked if I was awake, which I was, and was treated to a chorus of Happy Birthday from all the boys. JP cooked me a full vegetarian English breakfast (in the form of a boil in the bag army ration pack), James had carved Happy Birthday into the side of a sand dune and Alex.L and Sammy had sneakily stuck an eagle hood ornament onto the bonnet of the Nissan. (Thanks everyone!)
Morning festivities over we were all set to head off to Astana, except that it had rained in the night turning the dirt tracks we had driven up the previous day into tyre hungry mud slides. The two Nissans, clearly the most superior, made it through unscathed but when the other two cars didn't follow we walked back to investigate finding the Matiz thoroughly stuck, grounded and Sammy behind the wheel. It was obvious we weren't going to be able to tow it out without risking the other vehicles so we would need to recruit some outside help. Our Main man for the job, now referred to as JP-International Relations, Public Relations and Official Relations, was on the case, sweet talking a Kazak family in a Lada 4x4 scouted out by Dave. They seemed to find this a bit suspect at first but eventually agreed to follow JP down the track to lend a hand. Seconds later they were out (we felt a little silly for mocking Ladas so much) a bottle of Vodka exchanged hands and we were on the road again.
We were making good time and merrily whiling away the hours by spewing nonsensical songs, jokes and dialogues over the walkie talkies when we were stopped at a police checkpoint. They were becoming fairly routine now so we gathered all our documents and handed them over. We didn't appear to have done anything wrong so we just waited whilst they had a customary poke about. They found the animal skull that the Alexs had roped to the front of their bonnet quite amusing and made some comment about the plastic petrol cans James and Sam had strapped to the top of the Matiz but other than that they didn't really seem to be doing anything. We made motions to leave when James came over and dropped a bombshell. "We've got to be out of Kazakhstan by tomorrow".
Thankfully this didn't apply to all of us but I could see trouble for the convoy ahead. Until the police checked their visas as that particular moment, Sammy and James had failed to realise that they expired on Thursday the 25th of August. Unsure of what the best way to proceed would be we continued on to Astana a little confused.
By the time we reached Astana it was dark and by the time we found somewhere to stay it was late. Large groups do tend to make things take longer than usual but eventually we ended up in an appartment dubiously rented out by a man waiting outside a full hotel. It probably wasn't very legit on the whole but it worked out well for us in the end. The apartment was large with a TV, showing the best Russian Music videos, 3 bedrooms 2 bathrooms and a kitchen. A couple of the boys went out for pizza whilst I was hoping to have a good shower, but instead found that there was no hot water and that touching various essential parts of the shower resulted in a mild electric shock. Things didn't get much better after that and to cut out the nasty bits I went to bed rather unwell which I am blaming on our lunch at the roadside cafe. Apparently I wasn't the only one either.
James and Sam had decided that they would get up at the crack of dawn to make a break for the border so by the time we got up they were gone. It didn't seem right to only see three little cars sitting together but we planned to catch them up as soon as we could. We spent the morning addressing our internet withdrawals and then headed into the town in the hope of finding a police station that would actually be able to register us and stamp our passports. It was one of those ridiculously fruitless affairs where you find a place that tells you to go to another place, which tells you that you should go back to the place that you just came from. Things continued in this manner for a while with JP leading the investigation until we came to the conclusion that it was not going to happen. He informed us that the lady in the tourist office had said that we would need to hire a translator (at a cost to us) go to the immigration police, pay the fine for not registering within five days and then pay further to get the passports stamped. Apparently it also would have to be done before the office closed at six. It was twenty to. So if we wanted to register we would have to pay for another night in a hotel and do it the next day. We decided it wasn't worth it. If we had to pay a fine at the border it would still work out less than staying another day. We hit the road again.
As we had wasted so much time in the town we were contemplating driving late into the night to make up some time so that we could still meet James and Sam just over the border to Russia the next day. We had received a text from them saying that they had been fined for the wrong person driving the car. When we entered Kazakhstan we were unsure as to whether the insurance we had to buy was for the car or for the person and none of the police officers we had been stopped by so far had checked it. Turns out it only applied to the person so that meant that if we wanted to avoid a fine, myself, Dave and Alex.R would have to do all the driving until we left Kazakhstan. We set off and had not been driving long when we came across a traffic checkpoint. No points for guessing that we all got pulled over but we hoped that we wouldn't be kept too long. We were wrong.
The officer demanded our passports then went marching off into building. Dave and I followed. He searched through our papers for a while,established who was driving, how many passengers we had, where we were going and then withdrew the little problematic unstamped pieces of paper from our passports. He made a stamping motion and said "Big Problem".
His English wasn't perfect but he clearly knew and understood enough. He asked us why we hadn't registered and Dave immediately replied by saying that we thought that the stamp on the slip of paper was the registration and we weren't aware that we had to get anything else. The officer pointed at Alex's passport and guestured outside by which I assumed he meant he wanted me to go and get him. Once all three drivers were in the room and the door was shut he again queried the lack of stamp to which we all replied that we didnt understand. He kept crossing his arms (x-factor style) and saying fault then pointed to a piece of paper on his desk, half covered by other bits of paper.It appeared to be a table of numbers with writing next to it. We assumed this was the fine. We thought that this would be the case and were prepared for this so asked where we had to pay the fine to get the stamp. He appeared not to understand. We asked if we had to go back to Astana for the stamp but he just kept saying that if we went to Astana we would have to pay for the "fault",and then we would have to spend five days there before "deport". He then showed us some other driving licenses that he had confiscated and drew and envelope on a piece of paper suggesting that he would have to post them back to London. We said that we would need to speak to the Embassy which he didn't seem to understand and then he drew another figure. 5000 tenge. He said no fault, you go to Russia,"I not see you, you not see me". We saw that coming. Clearly this needed some sort of group discussion. We asked if we could go and speak with our friends outside now having been in the office for quite a while. He only allowed Dave and myself out the first time but Alex managed to go out and get up to speed after us. Basically the plan was to go on playing dumb say we didn't have any money and keep saying Embassy in the hope that he would give up and let us go for free. The next few dialogues took about two hours. He kept calling us his friends and even went out and came back with a sweet for each of us,all the while making it clear how much of a very big problem this was and that we would get deported if we had to go back to Astana. Eventually he changed tactic and drew a box on the paper asking "how much?" We continued to explain that we had no money as we were expecting to leave the country and it seemed he got bored. Reluctantly he agreed to "presents" at which point we ran back to the cars and rummaged for our best bribes. We contributed two packets of cigarettes purchased for just such an occasion, the Alex' gave two bottles of Staropramen and JP and Dave gave a bottle of English Banana Bread beer, which JP had been saving to drink at the finish :(. We dumped the prizes on his desk which seemed to amuse him and he then let us take our documents and go.
After this hold up we needed to make up ground so we began to drive into the night. The roads weren't the best but with Dave leading the convoy and JP on the radio pointing out all the potholes under the categories "medium", "severe", "gail force" or "critical" we made decent headway. A couple of hours and toilet stops later we decided to get a few hours sleep in and pulled off into a field to camp. It was about half past one and we were quite near the border so we planned to get up at about seven and make it there around lunchtime. We were just saying our good nights when we saw Dave and JP rummaging in the foot-wells of the Nissan. They had lost their document wallet containing the V5. We were definitely given them back from the border guard so it must have fallen out of the car on one of our toilet stops.
We searched again in the morning but unfortunately it was clear that it wasn't there. They decided to back track in the hope that they could find it and join us later on, but if not would have to go back to Astana, extend their visas and wait for a new V5 to be shipped out from the UK as there would be no way of getting into 4ussia without it . Massive bummer. We all hoped they would find it but unfortunately they would have to search alone as the convoy needed to continue. Wishing them luck we left for Russia now another car lighter.
Feeling pretty deflated we reached the border in reasonable time. We were prepared for potential problems with not having our passports stamped but the guards either didn't notice or care and so we got through for free. The whole crossing took less than a couple of hours so once we were through the two remaining cars stopped for a quick cup of tea to celebrate and boost morale.
We received a text from Sam and James saying that they were waiting for us in the next town so we couldn't hang around for long. They weren't immediately visible so we waiting by the main road whilst the Alex's went off to search for them. Minutes later they were back and there was the Matiz. A whole day had passed yet we greeted each other like long lost relatives. We filled them in about JP and Dave by which point I had received a text from them saying that they couldn't find the documents and would have to go back to Astana. We all knew this was a likely scenario but it was still disappointing nonetheless.
That night we camped by a river but it was far too cold for swimming so we played some cards again retired to the warmth of the tents pretty early. Today we've just beed bombing it through Russia as we are aiming for Mongolia tomorrow. Again it's pretty cold and now late so I will update more tomorrow. Desperate to get in my sleeping bag!
Also please excuse the grammar issues. Typing this amount on the kindle is not easy!
Morale: Average
Car: Either the Petrol tank or petrol gauge is a bit dodgy. It never seems to fill all the way up. Nothing serious though.
Current thought: It's bloody freezing!
Miles:7,770
Country Count:
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