From 10 degrees to 40 degrees overnight!

Now that I have recorded our experiences so far, we have a Kazakh chip for our cell phone and have taken local money from the ATM, our journey through the country with its wonderful people can continue. We pick up our bikes from the parking lot opposite and although we cover them with a light tarpaulin, they are covered in a fine layer of dust. The equipment is quickly loaded onto the trestles and at 9:00 a.m. we leave the city of Uralsk with its 191,000 inhabitants behind us. At the end of the town we see the typical traffic police control building again. “Hopefully they’ll let us through this time without asking too many questions,” I think, because I’ve just warmed up and don’t feel like making unnecessary stops. No sooner has my thought percolated through my brain than a loudspeaker voice thunders down to us. We don’t react and just cycle on. Before we can even leave the little house behind us, a policeman leans out of the window and waves us upwards with a gesture of command. We stop and lean our bikes against the crash barrier. While Tanja looks after our precious carriages as usual, I climb the steps to the command center. A policeman and a policeman look at me with smiling eyes. The man rises from his chair and shakes my hand. “Where from? Where to?” I declare. Great amazement. The familiar ritual, which is now part of our routine, unwinds. “We want to travel Mongolia on horseback,” I add. When he doesn’t understand, I imitate riding movements with my body. Suddenly the man opens his eyes and looks at his colleague, somewhat embarrassed. She looks down in shame. “What, you want to eat women in Mongolia?” I understand. “For God’s sake, no. We’re riding horses through Mongolia,” I correct, struggling to find the right Russian words. “Ah, horses! Ha! Ha! Ha!” he laughs freely, shakes my hand and wishes us a safe journey.

Just a few kilometers further on, an ancient, rickety box overtakes us and brakes in front of us. We stop, because we don’t want to be rude and answer these people’s questions. The doors of the vehicle open to the front and an elderly gentleman gets out to pepper me with questions. I understand that he is Volga German and was forcibly resettled to Kazakhstan by the Russians. (After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II, the approximately 400,000 Volga Germans were collectively accused of collaboration and forcibly resettled to Siberia and Central Asia). “Please wait a moment!” says the friendly gentleman and goes to his wayward car to haul a two-liter jar of cherries. “Here you go. You have to take these with you. They taste really good,” he says and holds out the giant glass to me. When I kindly decline, his wife gets out of the wayward vehicle to support her husband. She points to my camera bag and wants to stow the glass in it. “No, no thanks,” I try to remain firm. Then they both point to my box. “Surely you have a place in your fridge for that little jar?” they say. “No, oh no, thank you very, very much, but it’s already packed with our tent and other equipment,” I decline. Fortunately, the two of them have understanding for me. The man takes the glass back to his car, only to arrive a fraction of a second later with a smaller glass of cherry juice. This time I can’t refuse under any circumstances and have difficulty finding a small place in the trailer. We say goodbye and continue cycling south, while the generous couple head back towards the city. “They actually followed us,” says Tanja. “Yes, incredibly friendly.”

We should have ridden from China to Germany and not the other way round! A slight headwind starts to blow just after the city limits. I don’t suspect anything good. Even though the wind is only blowing in our faces at around 10 kilometers per hour, it slows us down painfully. Around midday, the thermometer rises to a whopping 42 degrees in the sun. Unbelievable, just a few days ago the thermometer was still at 10 degrees in the sun and now, without any warning, it has climbed to a whopping 32 degrees. We’re sweating like monkeys and suddenly cycling is incredibly tiring. On the wide road, which seems to have been drawn with a ruler, there are only very few dirt tracks leading left and right into the eternal expanse. When we discover one after 38 kilometers, we leave the bitumen strip to huddle in the sparse shade of a bush. Hungry, we eat the white bread, cheese, boiled eggs, cookies, dates and Rapunzel almond paste we bought in Uralsk. Thousands of annoying little flies have conquered the country overnight and are tormenting us. They sit in our ears, nostrils and eyes and buzz incessantly around our heads. “Reminds me of the Australian outback,” says Tanja, waving her hand almost incessantly in front of her face.

The journey continues. My left knee starts to hurt. “Surely a knee problem won’t develop now?” I think uneasily, as a slight brace of fear tries to weaken my previously stable psyche. Suddenly, an unconventional Muslim cemetery appears at the side of the road. Since around 47 percent of the country is Muslim, we are not surprised by the many crescent moons on the graves. But why is the large cemetery so far away from any settlement? We take a few photos and follow the dark ribbon of road through the steppe. A shepherd drives his flock of sheep across the sun-warmed tar and gives us a friendly wave. Slowly, at just under 15 km/h, we work our way towards the warm breeze. The country does not change its face. Kilometer after kilometer it remains the same. And that doesn’t make it any easier to get ahead. Gone is the wonderful cycling day we had when we reached Uralsk. In my thoughts, I start cursing the wind again. Last year we had almost 2,000 kilometers of incessant crosswinds and frontal winds from the northeast from the Crimean peninsula to Samara. But now we’re heading south again and should actually feel this wind at our backs. But no, it has turned a hundred percent and is now blowing from the south or even the southeast. Is it the season? “We should have driven from China to Germany and not the other way around,” says Tanja dryly. “Yes, that’s right. Fucking wind. It always seems to be against us,” I reply somewhat indignantly, cursing the weight of my trailer.

As the entire road runs through the steppe on a man-made embankment, it is bordered on both sides by deep ditches about 15 meters wide. This makes the current route even more uncomfortable, as they form an insurmountable barrier for us. So it is not possible to cool off from time to time in the shade of one of the trees growing behind the ditches. Our water consumption is too frightening right now. Despite our experience, we did not expect this. “We should ask over there if we can fill up the bottles,” Tanja suggests, pointing to one of the rarely appearing hermitages. We take the small detour and leave the tarmac. Two large dogs come barking towards us as we bump along the dirt track towards the farm. To be on the safe side, we stop for now. They don’t want to be bitten. Then the farmer whistles his guards back. We slowly pedal our luggage on wheels towards the house. “Do you have any water for us?” we ask. “Yes,” he replies briefly but not unkindly. The farmer climbs onto a dented and rusty water tank on wheels and scoops out the precious water with a tin cup. We fill it into our Bestard bottles. The dogs now circle us, wagging their tails. A turkey crouches in front of a couple of huts covered with straw and earth and makes gurgling noises. The main house is built with real bricks and looks relatively new and sturdy. We would like to pitch our tent here for the night, but as the man and his wife are not exactly communicative, perhaps they are shy towards us, we don’t ask and drive on.

First camp next to the roadA Muslim memorial appears in the middle of nowhere. One path leads to her. “Let’s go and see if we can get into the bushes,” I shout. One of the few cars stops as we reach the building, which is dazzling in the sun. People get out, ask the usual questions and go to the building. We wait until they have disappeared again and follow a dirt track that runs parallel to the main road at a distance of about 200 meters. After ½ kilometer we find a spot behind bushes and trees that is not visible from the road. “This is our camp spot,” I decide. After more than eight hours and 80 kilometers per day, we unload our bikes, dog-tired.

Our bodies feel like they’ve been maltreated with bamboo sticks. Thousands of small mosquitoes are happy about the presence of warm-blooded animals. Horseflies, ants and mosquitoes join the annoying pack and don’t make it easy for us to get into a happy camp mood. I hope that our camps, the headwind, the heat and the monotony of the steppe will not accompany us on the next 2,000 kilometers through Kazakhstan. “How are we going to put up with this?” I think to myself. After pitching our tent on the bumpy ground, we sit there in silence. Then I unpack the laptop to feed in the day’s experiences and pictures. I don’t actually have any energy left for this project, but if I don’t do it today I’ll have twice as much work to do tomorrow. Experience has taught me that sagging is not an option. Sagging and putting it off until tomorrow has unpleasant consequences. And if it does happen, then I have to be careful not to postpone it again the next day. And when that happens, you can actually pack your bags, because it’s almost impossible to catch up in terms of energy. So the documentary takes an early toll of perseverance. “I have to eat something,” Tanja interrupts my thoughts. “Damn good idea,” I reply and close the Lappy to dig my teeth into the bread, cheese and cookies. The thirst is almost abnormally great. Although we’ve been sitting in camp for an hour, our bodies are still demanding water. “Will we have enough water tomorrow?” I ask with some trepidation. “How far is it to the next settlement?” Tanja wants to know, yawning with tiredness. “About 70 kilometers.” “Should be enough. Good thing we filled our bottles at the farmer’s.” “How much water have we poured into us today?” “I don’t know exactly. So let’s do the math. We’ve each used three liters from the Source drinking system. And now another 1 ½ liters. Well, I think we should calculate five liters per person per day in the current conditions,” Tanja concludes, looking down at her legs, which are covered in light heat fog. “You stupid animal,” she interrupts the pause for thought. “The stupid flying creature flew right into my ear.” “Really?” “Yes, really. It’s buzzing around in there.” “Well, it’ll come out again,” I reassure her, somewhat amused. “Look at my arms and legs. One day in the sun and I burnt them straight away. Despite the sun cream.” “You should have rubbed it in from the start.” “I should have,” I reply, feeling the heat from my sunken limbs rise to my head. Without a doubt, I feel uncomfortable at this moment. And there’s no doubt that I didn’t expect us to suffer in the first few days. It all started so easy and relaxed. “My arms are burnt too. Look here,” Tanja interrupts my thoughts.

“According to the map, there are stretches of 200 to 300 kilometers without major settlements that we have to cross. If the wind stays like this, we won’t manage more than maybe 50 kilometers a day. I have no idea how we’re going to carry that much water,” I think aloud. “Me neither.” “It was easier in the Australian desert. We loaded the water onto the camels there,” I remember. “Yes, I didn’t think we’d have a water problem here in Kazakhstan. We can manage without food for a while, but we can’t do anything without water.” “That’s right,” I say, not knowing at the moment how to solve this challenge that has arisen.

At around 9 p.m., we crawl into our fabric shelter and lie down on our sleeping mats. “The floor is crooked. I’m sure it’s better with you,” says Tanja. “Nope, it’s just as crooked on me.” “I’m sure it’s worse on me.” “No, I think it’s worse on me,” I reply firmly. Despite the rollercoaster below us, our exhausted bodies soon fall into a deep sleep.

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