Getting the Hell Into (and Out of) Dodge
For our second stop in Kazakhstan, we aim for Aktobe, a largish city about 500 km east of Atyrau, which we figure we should be able to reach in a day's driving. We stop for gas before leaving town and get to talking to a local, who advises us to drive to Uralsk, 400 km north, and then east to Aktobe, because the direct road east was very bad. If "very bad" was anything like the road we experienced the day before, we figured driving an extra 400 km out of our way would be an easy price to pay compared to the likely headache waiting for us on our originally planned route. And so we head north towards Uralsk on very respectably smooth blacktop, making good time despite driving through our first (rather to our disappointment, quite minor) sandstorm and stopping to check out a peculiar Russian cemetery, complete with multi-colored crosses and laser-etched portraits of the deceased upon the headstones.
Despite the extra time, we were quite happy that we took this route not only because the road was remarkably good, but because we happened to run into three other Rally teams--Dusty Racing Advisors, Aveo's First Mongol Rally (aka, "the Chevy Guys"), and Team Snake Pit--who were heading the same way. After a friendly exchange of honks and good-natured passing, we all pulled over, exchanged pleasantries and a few stories, and decided to drive together to Aktobe. As Matt and I had somewhat expected, the day was growing long and we were still far away from Aktobe. Without the caravan, Matt and I would most likely have stopped a while before sundown to set up camp for the night, but the others were determined to make it to Aktobe that night. Since we were heartily enjoying the camaraderie of traveling with the group, we chose to continue on despite the impending darkness.
After some road construction delays that took us off the blacktop and onto dusty bumpy side tracks, we persevered, now in the full dark, to Aktobe, which we reached around midnight, a city just as shiny and impressive as Atyrau. A bit of a "herding cats" situation ensued when the four teams all tried to put their heads together to find a place to stay for the night. At one point we pulled over at a busy restaurant to hop in for directions to the center, and ended up with a rather inebriated Kazakh and his designated (or so we hoped) driver who insisted on leading us to a hotel. Lacking better ideas, we followed our newfound guide, who stopped off at a few closed or possibly full hotels before reaching the brightly lit and welcoming Hotel Amsterdam, where we all piled out to check out the rooming situation. The price for a room was way out of our price range, but the Chevy Guys were old hands at this particular problem, and tried to cajole and bully the night desk clerk into a bargain price. Having no luck despite the winning argument of "you have open rooms and it's one AM, some money is better than none, right??" (perhaps the poor girl's very limited English was a factor in this failure), we opted for plan B, which was to try and locate an affordable hotel mentioned in our guide book, directions to which we had pulled up using the hotel's wifi while the bargaining was taking place. We were all set to do so when our friendly drunken guide turned decidedly unfriendly and lunged at one of Team Snake Pit, grabbing at his keys and landing a punch to the poor kid's face in an attempt to get some money out of us for bringing us to the hotel. Fortunately the members of Dusty Racing Advisors, two brawny Germans (more on that later), and the Chevy Guys, an equally manly team of two Dutchmen and a Brit, were more than well equipped to dispatch the unruly stumbling Kazakh, which they summarily did so. After this bit of drama, we all quickly came to the decision to forget about hotels and Aktobe and get the hell out of Dodge. Despite our Herculean efforts to reach the city, we easily abandoned it and headed out of town to find a campsite, which we finally did at around 2 AM. When morning came around, we discovered that we had curiously ended up camping beside what appeared to be an informal equine graveyard.
Still in convoy, we head further east, deeper into the Kazakh steppe! - Ingrid












