Location: Aktau, Kazakhstan
No this is not an imaginary place eventhough Borat makes you think so. We disembarked around noon and later met three westbound Australians in the customs office waiting to get on the ship we had just arrived on. They are on an overland trip with their car from Australia to England.
We rode into Aktau to get some wifi, food and to get registered. Most ex-soviet countries require foreigners to register, whatever that means. Luckily in Kazakhstan only one registration is needed if you plan on staying in the country for more than five days. We have yet to figure out the purpose of that registration because they already obtained all our personal details at the border. It seems like these countries have a deep affection for bureaucracy involving small slips of paper with big stamps on them.
Aktau had such a relaxed air about it compared to Baku. We felt like we could finally breathe again. Honking was minimal and the cars stayed nicely in their lanes. The beach was lovely too.
We sat in a park for a bit when two guys walked up to us. One of them, his name was Bauyrzhan, spoke English and explained to us that his friend Alexander would like to invite us out for dinner. We accepted. He took us to a buffet restaurant and in addition to dinner he even got us two to-go boxes for tomorrow. What a great welcome to Kazakhstan!
THANKS ALEXANDER AND BAU FOR THE TWO DELICIOUS MEALS. IT WAS GREAT TO MEET YOU!
We decided to sleep at the port that night. Some Turkish truckers waved us over for dinner. We were still so full but they just kept giving us more food and vodka. Edo was so funny (in picture next to James). Turkish truckers are great company.
It had been such a great day and we were so happy to be able to continue our trip that we were completely unprepared for what happened next. We wanted to set up the tent when we realized the tent poles were missing! S-H-I-T!!!
After some pondering we figured that we lost them in Baku when we had to quickly unload the bikes to lift them up a steep bank to get around a huge muddy puddle in the middle of the road. Unfortunately this realization came too late because we could not go back and retrieve them. No more tent and stuck in what James calls the ass end of Kazakhstan with a week of desert ahead of us. We could just get on the train to Beyneu but that defeats the purpose of the trip. Morale plummetted to an all time low.
Ended up sleeping on the benches in the customs office which was open all night.
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