Off The Rhumb Line

Abandoned Ships & Cosmonauts!

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Tuesday July 30

With our Immigration Card ordeal over with, we are off in search of the Aralsk harbor and the lost Aral Sea.

Years of Russian irrigation starved the Aral Sea of much needed water. It has been nearly 40 years since the sea receded, strangling a fishing town of its livelihood and a harbor for its ships.  There is apparently now a huge International surge underway to try and revitalize and restore this part of the Aral Sea back to it’s former glory via a series of dams, dykes and channels.   Currently the “sea” sits about 23km offshore from the town of Aralsk and there is hope that in a few years the sea may return.  In the meantime, there are a handful of boats in “dry dock” that stand as a memorial to the once former bustling harbor / fishing town.  There is a more formal “Ships Graveyard” further up & around the western coastline, but we do not have the time to schedule this guided day trip.  Being a sailor, it is hard to see such an empty harbor devoid of life, fortunately, we also have fun with some of the local kids and the “other” current inhabitants of the harbor.

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Our journey south away from the blistering 50 deg celsius (120 degF?) heat toward hopefully cooler mountain weather (still a day or two away) continues.

Next up – a quick drive through the town of Baykonur, and views across the valley to the more famous Baykonur Cosmodrome. (This is a great link to a NY Times Article on the town and the Cosmodrome’s history!)

This nearly 7K square kilometer area is the site of the Russian manned space program, and where the Soviet’s space race & Yuri Gagarin’s famous launch as the world’s first human into space occurred in 1961.

Post the Soviet breakup / Kazakhstan’s independence, the Russians now have to lease this site and the town from Kazakhstan (scheduled til 2050).  NASA is also now paying to use this site to launch our astronauts into space to the ISS, since our manned space program is no longer funded for US  based launches.

For a NASA/space buff like me, getting a tour of this place would be an amazing life experience.  Unfortunately, despite it’s near desolate remote location,  I have read that they are INCREDIBLY hard to come by, are very expensive, and require months of advance preparation/paperwork / approval from the Russian Space Agency.  So we settle for the views along the road of the satellite arrays and a drive through the part of the town that lies outside the gates.  We considered trying Sarah’s, “But we’ve driven all this way in an American school bus. We’re from America.  You have to see our bus, you have to let us in…” but decided this may not, in fact,  work on these guards.

The part of town we can drive through is as dilapidated as so much of the rest of the countryside we have seen.  However, like the rest of the Kaz people we have met in this part of the country, they are very friendly and wave enthusiastically back at us as we pass them.

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Hey…Immigration Man…

Tuesday July 30

So, despite mailing my passport off to the UK months ago for the 30 day Kazakhstan Visa, and being given the twice over at the border control,  if you plan to  stay in Kaz for longer than 5 days, you must ALSO find yourself an immigration officer, in country, to stamp the immigration card you are given at the border.  Blow off being “registered”, and you are potentially subjecting yourself to huge fines, and/or imprisonment!  (numerous rally stories are swirling around about this unfortunate reality.)  So, one would think this would be an easy process, eh?  Maybe even one they are used to performing for foreigners?  Ah….more fun and games for Team Dixie Chickens!

The Marriott in Atyrau assured us this would be a piece of cake  – except the local immigration office is closed on weekends.  They would be happy to do it on Monday, if we chose to “extend” our reservations!  As we headed off into the desert on Saturday afternoon, we figured we’d take another stab at it when we arrived in Aktobe.

After finally meeting with some REAL pavement on Monday morning,  the bus tootled right along at speeds we hadn’t seen in days, and we very happily arrived in Aktobe around 3pm, (48 hours after leaving Atyrau – YIKES!)) Shortly after another of the “random” roadside police checks (which were non-existent while we were in the middle of nowhere for 2 days), we pass what we think is a police station, (later reflection has us thinking it was actually a jail).  We try our best asking for help with the immigration cards, as we’re sure there is an office in town SOMEWHERE.  We are excited when we’re told to follow a guy in his car who will help take us there.  After 15 minutes, it is clear we’ve been escorted out of town, and we are heading south.  DOH!!

2 hours down the road, we reach the next town and decide to try again.  We drive into the town square, befriend someone with much better english who helps us find an “escort” to the police station (as this worked so well for us earlier) where we encounter more joy with the Kaz language barrier.

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(their dad drove us to the police station, they loved the crayons!)

We are initially told NO, go away.  Pietro, our fine hunky italian journalist, unleashes his best charms on the young cute official.  Soon, 3 different police officers emerge, much scurrying back and forth behind closed doors, with Sarah’s  passport in hand, and an hour later we are still told NO.   Apparently,  we need to go to the next town down the road. (Hmmm…a trend..?)

Supposedly, there is an Immigration office in Aralsk.  Fortunately, this is in our direction of travel, however, it  is quite a number of hours away and tomorrow will mark our Day 5 in-country!  Thanks to the LOVELY road conditions we’d encountered over the weekend, the unfortunate reality sinks in that we, in fact, will not make it to Kyrgyzstan before the end of the day tomorrow.  We’ll need to pull another all nighter on the road, to make up time for the previous road conditions, and  arrive in Aralsk at the crack of dawn to deal with the inevitability of completing this “registration” process.

Arriving in Aralsk at “o dark 30”, we appease Sarah’s axe murderer worries and park the bus just outside of town for an hour or two till daybreak arrives.   We head into town around 8am, in search of the now near “mythical” immigration man.  We pass a police officer on our way, who hops right on into the bus and shows us the way.  The office does not open til 10am, but as we’ve apparently crossed ANOTHER time zone sometime in the past day, (having a hard time keeping track now), this actually works in our favor.
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Ahead of schedule, at 9:45am we are waved inside.  We are asked to submit 2 copies of each of our passport photo page, visa, and immigration cards.  Hmmm…  well, a not so quick trip to the local copier next door – a small “window” conveniently carved out of  the concrete wall that we pass our documents through … and 400 Tenge later (a meager US $2.50)…  the 9 of us are back in business.  Sarah, Tommy and I are seated back into the immigration office.   The kid (MAYBE, 19/20 yrs old?) who is left in charge to watch us while the officer takes our passports to another room picks up an item from behind the desk and pointing at it, says “Souvenir”.  Really?  The KID  is trying to milk us?  Sarah forks over a page of stickers emblazoned with the South Carolina logo – the Palmetto Tree.  I think the kid is even less impressed with this than the Dixie Chickens beer koozie we offered up to appease the border guard when we first entered Kazakhstan. The kid then asks about US dollars or Russian Rubles.  We all deny having any foreign, non-Tenge, money.

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Eventually our officer comes back and we each have to fill out yet another form.   Tommy is told he looks just like Osama, then he looks at me and asks if I am Tommy’s  mom – SERIOUSLY?!   Will is asked if he’s Snowden!  This gets more entertaining by the minute – at least the guy seems to have a sense of humor!  We rotate through, 3 at a time, and eventually, and only because we think their lunch hour had arrived,  our immigration cards are finally stamped and our hours of rigamarole are over, and we are legally on our way!

I  read later that night on the Rally Facebook page that another team of 9 posted that they were  in/out in 5 minutes with their quick stamp of approval..at the office in… Aktobe!  AAAARGH!


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Atyrau to Aktobe

Sunday July 28 –

After arriving in Atyrau at the fabulous Marriott Renaissance friday evening around 10pm – showers were priority #1. Then a re-group at the hotel sports bar for beer and food (in that order). Thankfully, they had an outdoor patio to save us from the ear shattering music inside for the 3 people on the dance floor. The lure of the incredibly comfy beds with multiple pillows had Don exclaiming we would NOT be getting an early start! (YAYE!)

After sleeping in, and catching up on the internet, we headed off into the Kazakhstan desert for Aktobe around 3:30pm

First off, a road detour and a massive traffic jam trying to get out of town on a saturday afternoon. At least we were entertained by the truckers and cars honking and waving at us – including an iced tea truck and one of many “oreonachos” semi’s we would see across the desert . A quick stop for gas had the entire staff with sharpies in hand signing the bus and slapping on a new sticker.

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The first 100km or so were paved before unceremoniously quickly devolving into bits of what once might have been some sort of “road” material now sandwiched between the craters and sinkholes. We essentially came to a screeching halt and began our 20km crawl. A quick note to the City of Chicago Dep’t of Transportation – I will NEVER mock you again!!

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Getting to see ALL the fabulous sites Kazakhstan has to offer, Night #1 of desert camping began around 8:30pm, setting up camp on the side of the road, next to a local landfill. At least we were treated to a gorgeous sun setting in the distance. Noodles & pasta (courtesy of jet boil) and some jimmy bufffet music, were enjoyed under an a amazing star filled sky.

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Today started at 8:30am on the road near MM 429

Yesterday we’d passed/met a frenchman who was bicycling from france to siberia. What an epic endeavor!. He is one of the happiest guys I’ve ever met – he was very much at peace – happy, smiling, waving, just trucking along on his bike, stopping to chat with whoever he meets on the road. Our morale was certainly set for the day when about an hour into our day today, we passed him – again – and had a hard time staying ahead of him!. Beaten by a bicyclist, how humiliating…. he just waved and grinned at us as we went by!

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It was a very long day of trying to stay off the hideously cratered main road. We quickly got a clue watching the locals and the semi’s, that the “road” of choice was one of the numerous adjacent dirt roads. It is slightly faster, and smoother, and had us wishing that the bus had the massive tires and suspensions of the multitude of Kamaz trucks that passed us by, quickly disappearing off into the distance out of sight!

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Taking photographs out the bus window has become a new art form. I’ve discovered that having even horizon lines are clearly overrated as the bus constantly dips and sways as it rambles along the washboards. I’m going to be quite busy with the “straightening” tool when I get home.

Sarah has renamed kazakhstan “godforsakenstahn”. It may be desolate here in western Kaz, but it is also beautiful in its own way. There are hawks, camels, goats, sheep, cattle, and the occasional herdsman checking on them. There are passenger and freight trains routinely rolling along the tracks that parallel our path. The Dust devils are magnificent to watch as they roll across the landscape, but of course there is a thick layer of dust/sand on EVERYTHING!

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There is occasionally a river and some greenery and maybe a tree here or there, and small towns dot the landscape, one of which had a fairly modern petrol station out in the middle of nowhere, where we stocked up on diesel and water. Around 7pm, we were passed by another rally car – Team “Flying Lederhosen” – the car supposedly confiscated at the Ukrainian border! They had quite a story about that, which I will save for a later post

Average speed for the day = a blistering 20km/hour.
12 hours of driving took us from MM 429 to MM 610 – we are only about halfway to Aktobe. The 500 km days may be over, and night #2 of desert camping ensues.

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Shakedown Alley

Border Crossings  have become legendary among the Ralliers – and this year is sure to be no different.

Many of you may have experienced them as simple, painless procedures, but trust me, they can be tedious, lengthy, painful, and costly!        (And it goes without saying, cameras are strictly VERBOTEN, so not much visual to share.)

My friend Tom Hase, has entertained me for years with his tales of border woes from his travels around the world.  For the longest time, I thought he may have been “elaborating” his stories for the sheer joy in the “telling” of a good story, or that, maybe, it was just Tom. and his luck (or lack thereof).  Apparently,  maybe he’s been right ALL along!

First up, Slovakia!  Our teammate, Dave, who also happens to be one of Britain’s finest,  got  pulled over moments after crossing the Slovakian border (having JUST taken over the driving reigns from Don)  – .  Whoo hoo – our first shakedown!  A 700 euro fine for failing to stop at the border and purchase the Solovakian vignette road card (retailing for a mere 10 euro).  DOH!  After some friendly banter (Hey, we’re all cops here…) we escape the fine,  provided we immediately return to the border, following behind them.   A quick purchase of the card, and some photos of them with the bus, had us on the road shortly thereafter.

After that, Don nominated Dave to handle ALL our border crossings with the same aplomb!

Saturday July, 20 – Romania/Moldova/Ukraine:
The Romanian Border Crossing is a piece of cake, and in 20 minutes we’re off to wait in a traffic jam on the bridge to the Moldovan border while the fire dep’t deal with a burnt out car!   After patiently waiting in line at the Moldovan border crossing, Dave and Don decide to try and “speed” things along! After a “bit” of a run around,  a suggestion is finally made by the customs official….”How about a little gift for customs?”  the $40 “request” became a $30 “donation” and the bus was on it’s way – less than a mile of driving in Moldova, we come to the Ukraninan Border Patrol.  2 more hours of Dave and Don working their mojo magic has us freed and on our way, but not before Dave is totally spent, and Will saying he’d SWORE he’d never come back to the Ukraine! Welcom Back Will Houtz!!  😉

We’re told if we take a left turn out of the border exit to go to Odessa, we will be on a road that will take us back through Moldova (and then back again into the Ukraine – wheee… MORE border crossings).  We turn right, to stay in the Ukraine, but the road forward has us thinking it was a choice of rotten apples, frankly.

All told, Romania to Ukraine – a roughly 3 km drive – 5 hours, and a $30 shakedown….what a way to spend the afternoon.

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Of course we later realize maybe we’d gotten off easy on our Ukraine entry as reports from other teams filtered in.
One team had their car confiscated because they made the  mistake of putting transport  plates on their vehicle before leaving the UK – (as most of the rally cars are imported into Mongolia to be sold to raise money for charity – that mound of paperwork is supposed to take place at the MONGOLIAN border!!!)  Unless the team could pay the Ukrainian import tax – the full value of the car – up front, in cash,  – they are SOL.  He was told he’d (supposedly) get the $$  back at the exit border – but seriously, who carries around a few grand in cash? We never heard what happened.

We ran into another team (from Alaska) outside Kiev and they’d  received a 50 Euro fine, AND the driver had been relieved of his pocketknife  – just because!

Thursday July 25, we arrive at the Ukraine/Russian border at 9:30 am.
First up, buy the Russian Vehicle Insurance. Then on to exiting the Ukraine.  We were helped out by a friendly english speaking border control woman who was knowledgeable about the Rally and was intrigued about our bus.  She was instrumental in smoothing everything out for us.  (Clearly another angel sent our way).  Don then went through and explained all the tools and bus supplies with the border guard and we were on to the Russian entrance checkpoint (We immediately lose another hour  – due to the time change).  After filling out our entry/exit cards and going in for visa check and bag scan, we’re through the border by 12:35pm.  2 hours.  not bad.  This has been by far our easiest border crossing to date and we were quite impressed with the Russians.  They were thorough, but friendly, and straightforward.

Friday July 26 – Russia / Kazakhstan
Leaving Russia today was just about as easy and quick as our entry the other day,  (45 min). One of the Russian border control guys even signed the bus!

10 km further down the road, getting into kazakhstan was wholly another matter.  First,  we’re asked for a “souvenir” at the bridge which goes over a river into Kazakhstan.  Sarah ponied up a Dixie Chicken Coozie., and despite our enthusiastic description of it’s many fabulous features and uses, he does not seem too enthralled with his new “gift”, but lets us pass on to  border control.

As the driver, Don stayed with the bus for his & the bus’ clearance as the rest of us are ushered inside for our visa checks.
Don says he kept spotting the border control guy with his drug sniffing dog walking the perimeter of the bus.  Don made sure to stay in line of sight of this guy through most of his checkout because the guy was also carrying a bag of white powder, and it was quite clear to Don that the guy was trying to figure out a way to plant it on/in the bus while Don wasn’t watching and bust us / shake us down, but good.

In the end, we escaped with them having pilfered (confiscated) Sarita’s bottle of wine, her Jergermeister and 1 oversized bottle of beer .  This one could’ve turned really nasty really quickly if Don had not been watching this guy like a hawk.  Sarita says she was happy to take one for the team as it was totally worth the price to make it through the border unscathed.

Checkpoint Charlie:
Throughout Ukraine, Russia, & Kazakhstan are these roadside random police checks.  They can’t seem to help themselves when they see us coming so we’ve become frequent visitors to the curb..  We’ve discovered they are so curious about the bus, most of the time they just walk around the bus staring at it and the handprints.  Eventually, they come into the bus, look at the lot of us, shake their heads,  and wave us on.

The other day we were pulled over in the same spot Will & Tommy call smol’ienski were they were pulled over last year  –  Don says…”Hi – I’m Don McLester from Charleston SC ” in FULL Southern drawl.   cop says – “you really drove all the way from the UK?”  Don says “yep”    – Cop Says “ok – get on outta here” and walks away  laughing.

In Eastern Ukraine  we were pulled over for spilling diesel all over the road.  Turns out the lady who pumped our gas had forgotten to put the gas cap back on and close the door.  Fortunately we were only a few miles  down the road from the station, so Don does a quick u-turn to head back and get our cap.  WELL, that just won’t fly – the cop waves us right over again for now doing an illegal turn!  He kept yelling at us in Russian, but we certainly can’t understand him any better the 2nd time, so he finally lets us go.  When we had to drive by him again 15 minutes later we all just waved at him out the window.

In Kazakhstan, we’re been pulled over 3x before even getting to Atyrau.
We’ve resorted to just all cheering, and waving, and giving them our best American twang in our friendly and boisterous hellos!
They really do not know what to make of our group

Overall, we’ve been VERY lucky, but we’ve got a few more borders to go  – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, & of course the grand finale – Mongolia!  Although the bus is not being donated/imported, so we’re told we should have an “easy” time of it –

Keep your fingers crossed!

Bridges, Breakdowns, and Rainbows!

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Friday July 26

We arrived in Volgograd, Russia around 9pm last night with the  Mother Russia statue‘s  outstretched arms rising in the distance high over the city.  Sunset had fallen and lodging/camping options appeared slim to none.  The collective agreed to make a bee- line for Atyrau, Kazakhstan and the  plush Marriott hotel rooms (Thanks Sarah!!) with wi-fi, showers, and a hot meal and cold beer (ammenities we have truly come to cherish) that awaited our arrival for tonight.

Driving out of town, we passed the miles and miles of oil and natural gas refineries that have come to define Volgograd.  We arrived at a McDonalds in Astrakhan, Russia this morning around 8am catching some zzz’s in our seats, while Don, Pietro, & Sarah  drove us through the night.  Not being much of a fast food aficionado, I must say my Egg McMuffin tasted MIGHTY FINE!!

Our first adventure of the day –
We were all ecstatic to discover that our oversized weighty bus WOULD be allowed to pass onto the floating bridge that we needed to get across in order to easily reach the Kazakhstan border.  I got my turn up on on the roof rack and camped myself up there with camera in hand as we crossed the rickety 1 lane bridge. It was AWESOME!!  Stefano and Pietro walked ahead, and photographed the bus coming across the bridge.  We successfully reached the other side to the many cheers & honks of the cars waiting their turn to go the other way.

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But the fun did not end there…..we had our first breakdown of the trip!!
As The Adventurists say….”if nothing goes wrong,  everything has gone wrong”.

About 3km(?) from the border, we pass over a small bridge with a guardrail, Don hears a clacky clacky sound from the wheels on the starboard/right side of the bus.  Quickly pulling over,  he and Tommy discover that the bracket holding up the brake calipers has gone missing.  The bus is dead in the water!!

We empty out of the bus and folks spread out and start walking back down the road looking for the bracket, to no avail.  It’s possible some scrap metal Sarah found might work, but now we need a hacksaw.  I work my magic and flag down a Semi (YES!!).

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Not just any semi mind you, turns out this guy works for a metal fabrication co. and has an electric hand grinder in his tool chest.  The guys go to work on the scrap metal, cutting and shaping it into what Don needs to make this impropmtu repair. Sarah rewards my NEW “knight in shining armor” (I had no idea they were EVERYWHERE!) with his very own Dixie Chickens T-Shirt!!  With our part now ready for install, the semi disappears on down the road.
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A local herdsman has come to check out all the action as well:

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Don gets us back up to speed and just for good measure we drive back down the road a bit further than the mile or so folks had walked.  And, NO SHIT! There, in the middle of the road, about 2km back, Don spies the bracket just laying there in the middle of the road. Over an hour later, it is still intact and undamaged from the semis and cars that have driven by it.  And it’s a good thing we found it too, because after we’ve turned around and headed back towards the border, not a mile later we hear the clackety clack again.  Don pulls back over.  The impromptu fix had loosened, so back on the bracket went and we were good to go!

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Border Crossings in the Rally are  legendary, and today’s is no different,  but I’m  saving that for another post.  Without TOO much shakedown, and with only minor pilfering (confiscation) of our some of our liquor stash (Sarita’s Jaegermeister among them) , we have arrived in Kazakhstan!

If Don thought the roads in the Ukraine and Russia were something to snark about, Kazakstan has welcomed him with some wild slalom driving on a road that is not unlike what the apollo lunar module must have encountered in the asteroid craters of the moon back in 1969!  YIKES!  Sarita says , with her best efforts of an eastern european accent,  “Here in Kazakhstan, we fix road, every day, best in world,”  We’re  in stitches.  280 km to Atyrau – and GO!

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A short while later we encounter our first MAJOR storm of the Rally, as the skies unleash a torrent of rain,  wild winds, blowing sand, and HAIL!  As the sun emerges out of the black clouds above,  it is still raining,  I figure there might be one heckuva rainbow out there on the horizon  – and I”m right!

it takes awhile to really kick in, but when it does, it is one of the most BRILLIANT rainbows I have EVER seen in my life.  It so clear, so intense and seems to last forever.   Don gets so sick of all of us hanging out the windows with photo lust in our eyes and hearts, he relents, stops the bus, and shoos us out the door with the comment of “ok folks go get those damn rainbow photos!!”  YEEHAW!!   The rainbow  is even more spectacular outside the bus – and we are even treated to a magical DOUBLE rainbow! (LOVED the “vivid” setting on the new camera!)

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Of course the day is not over, and I get to see my very first – not in a zoo – Camels!   They’re tagged & numbered, and they are right along the side of the road, but I am excited nonetheless. Don stops for another Photo Op!!

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This has been a SPECTACULAR day!