SARYKOL – ASTANA

The morning comes to a tiny house called hotel on a roadside, but we are happy to have a shelter at all because it seems unreal to put a tent somewhere over here. We got two beds for eight dollars plus water. From a bucket. And this is first time during the entire trip when we are not requested to pay before we fill the gas! The fuel is even cheaper than in Russia and pretty good quality, too. The only little problem we have is operating with octane numbers: 91,92,93,95,96,98, so we are trying to hang on to 95. There are huge barley fields on both sides of the road; we’ve heard Kazakh barleys are the best, and now it’s right the harvest time. To our surprise, it’s quite cold: temperature has felt to +12 C and it’s raining time after time. The roads are rather good to keep the speed about 100 km per hour. Around 8PM we finally reach the capital city – former Aqmola (“the white tombstone” in Kazakh), former Tselinograd and now “Northern Capital” from 1994 on. It is growing quickly, too. They say there are 700,000 of inhabitants living here now, however nobody is aware about the real number since there are too many Turkish, Uzbek and Kirgiz guest workers. Very soon we meet local bikers who instantly check us in the hotel and invite for a dinner. We are a bit confused by such hospitality but they act so naturally, as if this is the only way to be.