As washed

“Wuuummm!”, it cracks above our little tent. You could be forgiven for thinking that the ground was splitting beneath us and swallowing us whole. Bright flashes of lightning briefly illuminate the inside of the tent, then mighty thunder rumbles again. The storm passes directly over us. Black clouds empty their masses of water and cause a drum roll on the tent track. I lie there with my eyes wide open and listen to the sounds of the forces of nature. As soon as one storm front has passed, the next one follows. Almost the entire night, one thunderstorm after another erupts over the steppe. Nevertheless, we sleep the sleep of an exhausted cyclist. Suddenly an object crashes onto our tent. “What was that?” Tanja gasps. “I don’t know,” I whisper, also sitting down. “It couldn’t have been a branch. The bushes behind which we erected our tent are too small,” I explain and continue thinking. “But then what was it?” whispers Tanja. For a brief moment, we feel a little eerie. “Drunk people can hardly have discovered us in the dark stormy night and large animals like bears are only found in Eastern Siberia,” I whisper. I quietly open the zipper of our dwelling and peer into the darkness. Apart from the wind catching in the bushes, nothing can be heard. I close the canvas and lie down. “Maybe it was a bird that flew into it,” I reassure us, whereupon we travel back to the land of dreams.

When we leave our tent after 10 hours of sleep, we step out onto a clean, washed steppe. The thunderstorms have passed, the air is fresh and the visibility is stunning. A sea of cumulus clouds dots the blue sky. A strong northerly wind is blowing into our sides today and our progress is slow. With great effort, we work our way kilometer by kilometer through what is now a slightly hilly, fantastically beautiful landscape. The gently winding road leads us past a few lakes glistening in the sun. Horses graze in front of a gentle hill in lush greenery. Signs point in the direction of a village hiding on the horizon. We cross a bridge at the same time as a train rushes past below us. “It looks like fairytale land,” says Tanja, who is suffering from hay fever today and doesn’t have much energy.

After 25 kilometers we discover a lonely, run-down motel on the side of the road. “I’ll ask how much a room costs,” I say. “2,000 tenge (11 euros),” says the landlady. I inspect the place and recoil at the sight of the dirty, dilapidated, very small rooms with their absolutely broken mattresses. “We can’t stay there,” I decide. “Kuschet jeßt?” (Is there anything to eat?), I want to know. “Yes,” is the answer. We are allowed to push our horses into the garage and satisfy our hunger with a salmon soup (noodle soup). Because there are no cookies, we get some from my trailer and wash them down with milk tea.

An hour later we get back in the saddle and work our way eastwards against the crosswind. “Please! Just one photo!” shouts a man who has stopped his car especially to take our picture. We strike a pose. People are happy and laughing. A woman offers us Bortseks. (Small doughnut-shaped yeast dough balls that are fried in fat) “They taste amazingly good,” we praise. “That makes me happy. Why don’t you take the whole bag? We have more in the car. You can eat them later,” the woman suggests. In the meantime, her husband heads a mega-sized watermelon and hands us juicy, dripping pieces of it. Tanja then takes a few photos of our hosts in the steppe, and the enthusiasm is soon boundless. We say goodbye with a big hello, as if we’ve known each other for a long time. Barely a few kilometers further on, we are stopped by police officers. “Please take a photo of us!” shouts one of them. We stop, press the shutter button on the camera and are allowed to cycle on.

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