” THE CHAIRS! ”
Suddenly I was wide awake. The wind was blowing hard, beating with all its force against my cheap Decathlon tent.
Before turning in I had put our small camping chairs between our bikes so that they would not blow away if there was a little wind. But this was not a little wind. This was a real storm!
I quickly got out of my tent, put my bare feet in my motor boots and ran in my underwear to the bikes. The chairs were still there and I grabbed them. But one of our pans, also next to the bikes, blew away at that moment. I was standing with two chairs in my hand between the bikes and the tents, figuring our what to do. I started folding one chair, while holding on to the other, preventing it to fly away and fighting at the same time to stay standing myself. I finally managed to shove them into my tent, when Erik came out of his, also in his underwear and motor boots. We must have looked very sexy.
He was afraid that the tents might blow away. I hadn’t even thought of that, but looking at them now, I understood this was becoming a real danger.
The evening before had begun idyllically. From Almaty we had done a nice ride to the Kolsai Lakes and arrived in Charyn Canyon in the late afternoon looking for a suitable camp spot.
Kolsai Lake nr 1:
In the beginning we did not find anything nice, just a parking lot on top of the canyon ridge. We were not allowed to ride down into the gorge itself with our bikes. That was only allowed for 4×4 cars, and later we heard that even some of them had a hard time making it.
We rode a bit around and at the end, past a no entry sign, we found the perfect spot to set up out tents. Our tents and bikes were at the edge of the ridge, looking out over the canyon. The view was absolutely stunning. While the sun was setting, some people came by, talked to us, wanted to take a selfie with us, and gave us some beer. Everybody is amazed when we tell them how far we have come on our bikes and where we are still going.
After all the pictures were taken, we sat down and had a Vodka Coke, using the last Vodka that had not yet leaked into my top case. Luckily we had gotten that beer! We cooked our pasta with fish and peas in tomato sauce and ate our dinner. It was actually a great evening.
And now, 4 hours later, we were fighting against the wind.
While I held Erik’s tent, he emptied it, and put his stuff in a small stone shelter that was not far from our bikes. Then we folded his tent and did the same with mine. When we walked to the shelter to sit out the storm, a Polish girl and her Bulgarian boyfriend joined us in the shelter. They had been camping a bit further down, and had been blown away too.
The wind was so strong that it even blew over our bikes. Both of them were laying on the ground. It was a very sorry sight.
The rest of the night we tried to sleep all four in this small structure and were waken up by a beautiful sunrise, as if nothing had happened. Some Koreans came and made pictures of our fallen bikes and our bivouac of fortune. We packed up, drank some coffee and decided to walk down into the canyon.
Here we met 2 couples from Kazachstan who wanted to practice their English, so we invited them for a coffee. it was difficult for them to accept, so we explained that we had already receive so much from everybody we meet, that it is nice for us to do something in return.
When we finally wanted to drive off in the direction of Russia, I noticed that my back tire was flat. I filled it again, but I was losing pressure so we stopped at a tire workshop. Here we found 6 tiny punctures within a 10cm area. My tire was porous, and I still needed to get to Barnaul, roughly 1000km away, where new tires were waiting for us. My windscreen fixings had broken too by the fall during the storm and it was very uncomfortable riding like this. We decided to ride back to Almaty, a small detour, to the only BMW Motorrad dealership in Central Asia, to fix the windscreen and hope to buy a second-hand tire.
BMW could not help us, but sent us to Free Riders, a bikers workshop and guesthouse around the corner. Here they repaired my windscreen and sold me a perfect second-hand tire, all for about 40 dollars. Free Riders, by the way, can also ship bikes from and to Europe, so next time we could even do a 3 weeks ride in the area!
at the BMW dealership in Almaty:
at Free Riders:
The next day we left in the direction of Barnaul. We met Matt and Tom, 2 British guys on their BMW’s and they told us that the Mongolian border would close during the Nadaam Festival. We had planned to enter the first day of that festival, but now we understood that it would be better to be 2 days early to avoid long queues and border closures. We needed to speed up. We decided to get to Barnaul in only 2 more days.
The first day we rode together with Zahn, a Kazach who looked like he stepped right out of the BMW catalog. Everything was BMW, even his cap, and he cleaned his bike at every stop. We communicated with hands and feet and using 3 words of English. But Zahn was very hospitable and invited us for lunch and even diner.
The next day was our longest riding day so far, 14 hours plus a border crossing. At the border we met Edouard and Benjamin, two nice French guys riding their Tenere’s to Mongolia and back. We would meet them again at the Mongolian border and spent 2 more evenings together in Ulgii.
We managed to get to Barnaul where we booked a nice hotel for 2 nights.
The next morning, Friday, we relaxed and, in the afternoon, went to Sergei’s workshop where Andrew changed our tires. Andrew is the go-to-guy in Barnaul, if you need anything fixed for your bike. It was done quickly and efficiently. On Saturday morning Andrew also arranged our oil change and we were off. We rode 2 days through the beautiful Altai mountains direction Mongolia. A great road with nice scenery and on Sunday afternoon we finally arrived at the border. And there started a whole new adventure…..
Lenin statue in Barnaul:
Entering the Altai Republic
