Urals in sight!

After a quick breakfast of Rapunzel muesli mixed with a drink powder from Sanatur, we sit on our valuable and robust bikes. With a slight headwind and 44 degrees in the sun, we hit another detour. This time we have to carry our horses over the earthworks with considerable effort before we can continue on the black strip made from crude oil. Kazakhs roar around us in their vehicles as we carry them. One of the few cars stops. The passengers stagger drunkenly towards us, slurring their words. Then they get back into their box and try to overcome one of the mounds of earth at full speed to get onto the new roadway. When that doesn’t work, they drive off, but only to turn around and, this time in reverse, hit the embankment again at full speed. This time it seems to have worked. The car races up the pile of rubble at a frightening speed. When it reaches the top, it turns around and jets off. “Many a driver of an off-road vehicle wouldn’t have dared to do that,” I note. “Well, if he’d been as drunk as they might have been,” Tanja replies, to which I laugh heartily. We climb a long hill and glide down the other side into an eternal valley. “Can you see the ridges up ahead?” I ask Tanja. “Yes.” “These are the foothills of the Ural Mountains. We have to cross them.” At a distance of about 20 kilometers, we make out a reflection of the sun. “Could be the windows of a larger building reflected in the sun,” I think. “Then it must be Novoalekseyevka,” suspects Tanja.

When we reach the edge of the village after 40 kilometers, we think we are extras in a movie about the future. “It looks like the revelation of the end of the world here,” I shiver at the sight despite the heat. We leave a rusty, loudly rattling concrete factory on the right and see a couple of yurts on the other side of the road, directly opposite a vast, smoking garbage dump. These are tents in which the traveler can obviously rest. A modern petrol station, dust, faded signs, countless electricity pylons and dilapidated fences are the harbingers of human settlement. Then we roll into the steppe town. The first in 234 kilometers. When the few people see our bikes, we notice from their reactions that hardly any such dangers have been seen here, if at all. “That’s a magazine!” shouts Tanja, pointing to a gnawed hut. We immediately pull the brakes and lean our bikes against the fence. In fact, there is a cold Coke. Although Tanja and I generally dislike the sugar stuff, it is a short-term source of energy at this moment. “Is there a gastiniza here?” I ask the sales clerk, who inundates me with all her questions. “But yes,” I’m happy about the unexpected statement, because a shower would be a dream. Her son swings onto his rickety bike and shows us the way. We pass dilapidated houses made of stone and clay. Past corrugated iron huts, over and through thousands of holes in the barely existing road. After a kilometer, the last dwellings are behind us. “This can’t be a gastiniza, can it?” I ask, pointing to the crumbling factory building in front of us. “But this is the accommodation,” says the boy with pride in his voice.

“I’ll have a look at the store,” I say to Tanja, who is looking after the bikes in the meantime as usual. A woman leads me up a dangerous, steep steel staircase to the second floor and shows me to a room. It is untidy and the beds are not made. She closes the door and opens another one. The same picture. She is successful on her third attempt. “How much does the room cost?” “3,000 tenge.” (about 17?). “3,000 tenge?” I say, astonished at the high price. “3,000 tenge.” “Where is the shower?” “There is no shower.” “I see, no shower.” “No, no shower. But there is a washbasin. You can wash yourself there.” “Hm. And where’s the toilet?” “The toilet is outside in the courtyard.” “Outside?” “Yes, outside,” she replies completely emotionlessly and without the slightest facial expression. I climb back down the dangerous stairs and report to Tanja. “We’re both very tired and considering that the first mountain range starts just behind the village, it’s over 40 degrees and our energy reserves are close to zero, we should stay,” she suggests. “If you say so,” I resign.

We are allowed to take our bikes to a dilapidated warehouse where, in addition to garbage, there are also lots of birds nesting. We chain it to an old construction machine, pull a tarpaulin over it to protect it from all the bird droppings and close off the Zargesbox. You never know. Then the owner of the noble house locks the large, rusty steel gate with a mega lock. As soon as our horses are fed, we sit in the restaurant of our modest accommodation. The only thing we are allowed to eat is macaroni with watery ketchup, dumplings stuffed with beef, old bread to match the house and warm beer.

So much water that you can even swim in it. “Do you want to swim?” the owner asks us later. “Swimming?” “Yes. There’s a river right behind the house. They can refresh themselves and wash there if they want,” he explains. “Good idea,” we say, hurry into the room, which is around 32 degrees, and pack our things. “Man, that’s a long way,” I groan as we walk along a dusty track for quite some time. We pass a Christian and then a Muslim cemetery, leave the ugly crumbling factory buildings behind us and stumble through dry grass. As we haven’t seen a shower for nine days, we don’t give up and keep walking until we finally spot a green strip. “That’s where the river will be,” I assume. “By the time we reach it, we’re all sweaty again,” says Tanja. “What I find even worse is that we’re sweaty again after swimming and walking back,” I reply. “Yes. That means we can walk right back to the river.” “Ha! Ha! Ha! Always back and forth just to stay clean,” I joke. We suddenly become so aware of the irony of our situation that we hold our stomachs with laughter. “I think if someone were watching us now, they might think the two cyclists have gone completely mad.” “That’s right. Aah, ha, ha, ha!” Tanja snorts and doubles over in a fit of laughter. We climb down an embankment and actually reach a river. Old fireplaces, broken glass bottles, chip bags and other garbage bear witness to the fact that the people of the settlement enjoy themselves here. “You go first,” Tanja suggests. “No, you go. I’ll look after our valuables in the meantime,” I give her priority. Because we are in a country that is largely inhabited by Muslims, Tanja steps into the cold water dressed in trousers and a shirt. As soon as she is in up to her hips, a group of young men arrive and immediately take possession of the small beach. As I said, we are in a country largely inhabited by Muslims and a woman from the West bathing is a sensation for the starving men. Before the men can even get their stink eyes out, we leave and walk back along the bank, sweating, to find another access to the river. Tall reeds and steeply sloping banks make it impossible to reach the promising water. “I just can’t believe it. I can understand that you can’t shower, let alone bathe, on a desert crossing, but on a cycling trip?” I ponder aloud. We turn branches aside, follow a winding path until we discover a beach that is deserted. Because we have our passports and cameras in view this time, we both dare to plunge into the really cool waters at once. We snort, laugh, shout, joke, soap our bodies, dive under and jump up and down like children. “Yes! Yes! Yes! Water is here! Water in abundance hurraaaaaaa!”, we shout, splash, soap ourselves again, wash our underwear at the same time and feel how our parched bodies are flooded with new energy. Only in such a moment do you realize how precious such a bath is, how valuable water is, how fantastic it is to have so much of it, to even be allowed to bathe in it. For many people in this world, especially in Africa, such a bathroom is not feasible. Desert dwellers, for example, rarely have this opportunity in their lives. And we, we are already freaking out with joy when we are allowed to hold our bodies in the water after a mere nine days.

In the evening, after a very modest meal, we retire to the room. At 30 degrees I almost get heatstroke. I examine the windows. None of them can be opened. As the room faces south, the walls are as hot as an oven. They have stored the sun’s energy and are now releasing it generously. “I can’t stand it. I can’t sleep a wink,” I lament. I speak to the owner of the store and explain the situation to her. She shows understanding and leads me into a windowless, dark and large room at the back of the building. “This is our movie theater,” she says proudly, pointing to a television and saying that I can lay my sleeping mat on the floor. I put her suggestion into practice while she puts a fan in the hotel cinema. Tanja makes do with the windowless sweat chamber. She doesn’t mind the heat. I think she could even sleep in a sauna.

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