Day 23 – Kostanai to Darobestja

High point: After several hours on the open road the boys were probing the land for the real Kazakhstan. Captain Steve took the wheel and also the initiative and randomly pulled a left at the only village we’d seen in the last 50 clicks. It turned out to be a beautiful decision. I think he’d had a few too many coffees and the chat and enthusiasm was coming on thick so the crew were quickly motioned into action. The locals, I think, were scared having never seen a European before, ever. We were greeted with trepidation but the cricket set was pulled from the back of Martha and quickly set up to include the village kids (Adults were coming back from a day’s farming to ensure we weren’t going to steal them). For the cricket, It’s safe to say it wasn’t your classic field setting, but I’m pretty sure the next Kazakhstan version of Brian Lara has been scouted. Hand eye co-ordination was incredible! By this stage the most incredible thing had happened. We found a young lad who had spoken English. There were seriously less than 100 people in this village. After explaining our story we were given a personal tour to the lake that was about 2km off the main trucking route. It was the most amazing campsite yet there were no other campers. The sun set on one side of the lake and rose the next morning on the other. Complete unobstructed by any building or man-made structure. Incredible.

 Low point: Day 22 was essentially a rest day. We had lots of sleep and Imodium but 80% of the crew still woke with a very poorly belly. The remaining 20% was making smells like he had a bad stomach.

No point: The annoying banging noise at the back of the fire engine has been tracked down to an open flap. It’s now shut.

Russian word of the day: Ohzeerah (Lake)

Authors comments: Big day as you can tell from the high point. The crew is running along on a high. Rest day also provided an ability to wash clothes so we have ironed t’s to show off that smell slightly less worse. We also met a lady called Llydnuilla who has been present in all the Russian  translation books.

Final point, the kids in the village were initially very scary. Seriously. Either that or I’ve seen too many Stephen King movies.

Dave

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