Steppe mountains

In the morning, shortly before we continue our journey, we stop at a roadside fountain in the village of Ereymentau to fill up our sourcetrink bags for the day. A grumpy elderly woman comes up to us, scolding loudly. She pulls a 30-liter aluminum barrel on a cart. When she stops next to us, we are served with an unpleasantly loud torrent of words. The old woman pushes her way to the tap without a second thought. I interrupt my work and let her go first. “That wouldn’t have happened in Soviet times. Very bad. Not admirable. Really very bad!”, we understand and don’t know why the woman is so angry with us. “We love the people in Kazakhstan and we really like the country,” says Tanja, whereupon the woman pauses briefly, only to continue ranting a few moments later. When her barrel is full, she closes it and wobbles away, still showing off. “We’re not going to let such a bad-tempered woman spoil our day,” says Tanja, taking my picture as I pour the remaining liter into the drinking system.

As soon as the village is behind us, we can see mountains up to 1,500 meters high in the south thanks to the clear view. These are the first serious mountain ranges since the Ural Mountains. On our route, however, we leave the impressive-looking mountains to the right. Its foothills, however, extend as far as us and push the grass-covered steppe over 400 meters into the cloud-covered sky. Our muscles are very well trained after the efforts of the past few months. We shift our reliable Rohloff hub into first or second gear and cross them without difficulty. “Don’t run your bike down too fast. I’m afraid I’ll have to pull you out of the ditch. That would be a disaster here in the solitude,” Tanja warns me because I like to go a bit faster downhill. “Don’t worry. I’ll steer my bike down into the valley in a controlled manner,” I promise and actually pull my Magura again and again to keep the rush of speed in check.

Although black, often patched, bitumen is spreading beneath us, it shakes alarmingly. I keep looking at the new bracket on my trailer, which is vibrating at a crazy speed. The material killer asphalt is still extremely rough. A fall here would indeed be fatal. Anything this grater touched beneath us would be shredded in a fraction of a second. Hoping that our equipment can withstand the constant vibrations, we are incessantly approaching the border between Kazakhstan and Eastern Siberia.

Suddenly we are attacked by mosquitoes during the journey. They don’t seem to mind the wind in the slightest, as they sit on our calves, thighs, arms, backs and foreheads and sting us without mercy. Stopping is soon impossible under these conditions. Whole squadrons follow in our slipstream. I can see the first results on Tanja’s calves. Thick, red pustules have formed on the afflicted skin in a short time. “We have to spray ourselves!” I shout, whereupon we both brake abruptly, pull our Jaico anti-mosquito milk out of the handlebar bags and mist ourselves from head to toe. “That will keep the critters away from us for a while,” I say, exhaling with relief.

There have been no trees or bushes here since Astana. As far as the eye can see, all we can see is the eternal prairie, open land in which we have not been able to make out any vegetation higher than 30 centimetres since our camp site this morning. “Camping seems impossible!” exclaims Tanja. “Yes, but it’s about time,” I reply, turning my gaze to the east and hoping to find a hiding place for us. “We’ll find something,” says Tanja confidently. In the late afternoon, we discover low bushes on the roadside far ahead of us. “I should have brought binoculars!” I shout angrily once again on this stage, as they would help us find suitable places to spend the night early on. When we reach the row of bushes, it turns out to be open and full of gaps. “Not a good place,” I say, letting my gaze wander over the greenery. Because it’s already late, I inspect the side behind the plants anyway. “Maybe there’s an angle where we won’t be noticed from the road,” I think, and wander attentively through the tall grass. There is a radio station about one kilometer away. “If it’s occupied, they’ll see us,” I say, pointing to the building with its watchtower. “Not a good idea,” doubts Tanja. “This is the first row of bushes in 90 kilometers. It’s better than nothing. Who knows if there’s anything further ahead,” I reply. “Nevertheless, when the guys up there finish work, they go to their village. Maybe they have a drink and talk about the cyclists behind the bushes. You know the people here don’t have much to do and they like any diversion. We also know that drunk men can be very unpleasant. I just don’t fancy drunken visitors. We’ve had them before and sometimes it was even dangerous. Even if everything has gone well so far, we just can’t get too relaxed, that’s often where the danger lies.” “Yes, yes, I know,” I agree with her, which is why we get back into our saddles.

I look in the rear-view mirror to see if Tanja is in my slipstream. The golden rays of the low sun flash in the rear-view mirror. We climb another mountain range and roll down its leeward side into the next lush valley. As if Tanja had foreseen it, the promising bushes she had hoped for suddenly appear. “Fantastic! They’re perfect!” I shout. We wait until there are no more cars to be seen and, as we have often done, push our riese und müller through the 30-meter-wide ditch, over the ever-present dirt track, and push ourselves quickly through the protective bushes. “Oh, it’s lovely here!” Tanja says happily as we stand on a huge meadow that promises to be a good base for our tent. A freight train passes by at a distance of about two kilometers, otherwise we are well hidden from the eyes of motorists.

As always, we set up our fabric dwelling, tidy up our sleeping quarters and sit down on a foil to reflect on the beautiful day for a few moments. Then we wash the day’s sweat off our bodies with a towel. Before the sun goes down, Tanja finds time to pamper herself with a cream from Primavera. I type our experiences into the laptop. Shortly before the glowing ball of sunlight touches the horizon, Tanja prepares us a delicious snack with fresh bread, tomatoes, cucumber and a few pistachios.

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