#10 Into The Steppe
May 12, 2023
CORNEEEL, I hear from the fourth floor of the hotel as I am about to turn the corner. Jagdish shouts from the top of his lungs waving his hands. “HAVE A GOOD TRIP”. I am going into the steppe for a thousand kilometers while Jagdish is taking the train to Almaty for 3000 km.
Leaving the city the road is good, although quite busy, but the drivers are noticeably kind to me. I took enough food and water, knowing that the next water point is at an unknown distance. I’d rather carry extra instead of running out of water in the steppe. Once out the city there are a few cars passing by, one of which stopped to ask if I would like a lift, but otherwise it is pretty empty except for mild undulations. The ground is yellow and dusty, with tiny spiky plants around, a few camels and horses here and there, and sometimes I could see canyons on both sides. It is impressively barren. The road takes me 80 km to the east, to a junction where I had to turn north. At this turn, at the gas station, two locals from Aktau start talking to me. Something about my appearance makes them realize I’m not one of theirs. They have a travel company and know the places very well. “Pull up the Google Maps” said one. “Let me show you the water locations”. Here, here… and here… he points to about five spots on the map for the next thousand kilometers. I buy four more liters of water then. “Oh, and watch out for wolves”. Kazakhstan is home to a significant population of wolves. Wolves are found throughout the country, including the vast steppe regions. I make my weapons readily accessible.
A little after seven in the evening I found my place to stay, I open the metal gate, which is tied with a wire, take a tour of the building and look through the windows and indicate that it is inhabited, it seems like a place for workers, scattered with personal belongings and beds with linen. Also, there is a cemetery next to it.
Location: Beki, Kazakhstan
May 13, 2023
The road is mostly flat, but the wind is blowing in my face. The legs are not working today and the landscape is empty. Although I am in a region that is almost like a desert, it is quite cold and about to rain. There is not a single place to shelter, no trees, no buildings, not even a rock or something to rest my back. It is brutal. For three hours I continued fighting, debating internally and out loud how I am feeling. I realized I was quite close to tears of frustration several times, from the futile exhaustion of trying to fight these elements, as I am making progress barely faster than walking pace and Shetpe is still 20 kilometres ahead.
At the grocery store in Shetpe, I make a hand motion of handwriting to the old lady, about 50. She looks at me and says with a clear voice and almost no accent: “Pen?” As in would you like a pen? I should stop assuming that the people I meet here don’t speak other languages. I buy about fifteen different things. None of the things is scanned but entered in a notebook with a pen: the product, the price and the quantity. The lady processes me in about ten minutes. I am the only customer for now. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be the third or the fifth in line. I remembered what the locals told me yesterday about the water points, so I took 8 liters of water and enough food to last me a day and a half.
I pedal out of Shetpe into the steppe. After Shetpe, the region is predominantly flat or gently rolling, with wide expanses of open grassland stretching into the uninterrupted horizons which gives a sense of space, a feeling of tranquility and a connection to nature. It is a vast and seemingly endless landscape, with occasional low hills and ridges adding some variation to the terrain. The vegetation is adapted to the semi-arid climate and consists mainly of grass, herbs, and shrubs, very drought-resistant. These plants have deep rooted systems to access moisture from the soil.
I started the day with gusty winds, cold and cloudy weather. In the afternoon the sky became clear and the temperature got higher. The desert is a cynical place.
In the evening I found a bump in the ground, one of the rare ones, where I hide the tent. I downloaded a bunch of books at home. I open one of them tonight. I feel my head swelling with Emil Cioran, a Romanian philosopher. I manage to read two pages and turn off the phone completely irritated to the core by his excess of intelligence. Makes me feel mediocre. Then I play with the dirt between the toes, an hygienic habit that always irritated my ex-wife.
Location: Say Utes, Kazakhstan
May 14, 2023
I start the day pushing hard at 12 km an hour against the cruel wind. Then it became ten, then eight… at seven km an hour I am asking myself if it wouldn’t be better to just push the bike. I miscalculated the route and I’m panicking about the lack of water. I have two liters, not enough for the next 40 km. In the distance, about three km away, I spot a rest area with couple of cars and a truck parked. I push hard against the wind to get there before they leave. I desperately need more water. Being given water is acceptable, begging is not. I feel terrible for begging for water, shows poor preparedness on my part.
I show the man a monetary amount three times more than the store value, asking if they have extra water. The Kazak takes out three liters from the trunk and does not accept the money. There was a softness, a kindness to his appearance, a kind of warmth married to disbelief, the look of an honest soul who understood, or maybe not, a lost animal.
The road occasionally has statues of a real size local animal on a concrete pedestal; some of the pedestals are missing the animals. The road has been empty, aside from a few roaming camels and wild horses. Miles and miles pass by in a straight road, and with great excitement sometimes I spot a bump in the ground. Parts of today’s road saw me go below sea level again, and therefore into land which the Caspian Sea used to occupy, and some of the landscape has been impressive with canyons and rock formations which wouldn’t look out of place on a shallow coastline. Pretty much you go 50 kilometers on the flat base of the canyon, then a sharp climb to the top of the canyon for another 50 kilometers, then a sudden drop back to the bottom of a canyon for another 50 to 80 km. I had to tackle one of those hills and sweated my way up, through millions of years of dried out Caspian seabed, and it brought me out onto a plateau of seemingly endless flatness. It’s quite hard to describe the emptiness. I have been to a number of deserts before but none has been as bleak as this: they either had rolling sand dunes, volcanos popping up, salt lakes, or rocky outcrops, but this was just flat as far as the eye could see in every direction. More of these tiny spiky plants covered much of the ground, not even as high as my ankle and in between was dusty, solid soil. The road would go straight for 100 km as there was nothing to turn around. The tarmac is good quality though with no potholes, which is a blessing. There are vehicles – usually at least one or two every ten minutes – which would drive very fast on this straight road.
Towards the end of the day it starts to rain cold with small drops and nowhere to put my tent without being seen. Takes me another 15 kilometres to finally spot a canal underneath the highway. I wait for a break between the cars and quickly push the bike into the canal. I am safe and protected from the rain. Well, Johnny is in the canal, I am in the tent outside the canal as the tent won’t fit inside. But at least I was able to assembly the tent dry.
Location: 33 km past Say Otes, Kazakhstan
May 15, 2023
It rained all night. Listening to the rain hit the tent, is like a soul massage. Then towards the morning I get a break for few minutes in which time I rapidly pack everything. I get out of the canal and start pedaling to generate heat. I feel cold. It is raining again, half of my clothes are wet with no chance to dry them off, the Pancho protects up to a point. Cold water is the most efficient thief of heat. Every 10 kilometers I stop to catch my breath. As soon as I stop, I start shivering from the cold. Back on the bike.
I feel alone today. You could say that I mastered the loneliness by now but the loneliness is squeezing my heart today, a constant pain. It kills me with each kilometer just a little bit more, taking what was once my inner adventurous spirit and replacing it with darkness overshadowing each moment. At home, loneliness is such an easy thing to fix: you find a friend, you call someone who cares, you pretend to have lunch at the restaurant just to be around people. Here, I am surrounded by camels, some a few yards away, some in the distance, and occasionally a herd of wild horses. There they are, I approach and talk to them. The camels don’t react to my sounds, just look at me and chew, while the horses run away with their foals, scared of the creature on the bicycle. I am marching through the loneliness that is meant for me… The depression cell kicks in. With loneliness comes depression. Hello Sadness.
The sign ’60 km’ to the next picnic spot doesn’t lift my mood, a sign with a picnic bench and a tree which leans in the wind, even though there are no trees out here – and when I get to the damn sign there is neither a bench nor a table. This is how far it is from one building to the next, and from one patch of shade to the next. There is simply nothing in between.
It rained on and off all day. More like on then off. I am begging the god of rain to take a break for half an hour towards the end of the day so the clothes dry off on me and I would have dry clothes tomorrow. If I go in the tent with wet clothes then there’s no way to dry. I also pray to the gods of dwellings to throw anything in my way except sand and clay soil where I can pitch my tent. Both of my prayers were answered. The rain stopped and I was given a cemetery as a home. I set up my tent very quickly between two graves and as soon as I threw myself into it, the rain started. I couldn’t care less at that point.
Location: 55 km before Beyneu, Kazakhstan
May 16, 2023
I am going on the road starving. I am so hungry that I am willing to sell my thin frail body to prostitution for a full-course meal. There’s bread in the trunk, almonds, and sunflower seeds on the menu. Food has become a luxury.
There are 56 kilometers to Beyneu. I’ve got to do some really serious pedaling, there isn’t a moment to lose. The first town in 300 km. It is raining. If I stop for the bread then I get cold. I cycle into the wind which seemed to be the standard and several trucks passed me carrying sand and gravel from a quarry with no cover on them, which then sprayed on me with tiny shards of rock in the high wind. I cycled through the sand-covered streets of this muddy town and stumbled upon the first gas station in hundreds of kilometers. The clean gas station looks like from another world, with tiles, a digital cash register, glass shelves, and attached prices. I take off my Pancho and because the water has gathered in the hood and other wrinkles, suddenly a pool of water falls on the clean, immaculate tile floor. The girls at the cash register make a sign of understanding, they will clean after I leave. Next to my table is a family with two small children. The husband asks if I want chicken and salad cooked at home. I’m throwing all my manners aside and eat everything that is offered like a hunted animal plus the hot dogs and donuts that I bought.
Four kilometers later I take a hot shower, swallow a paracetamol and aspirin and throw myself in bed hoping I would not catch a lung inflammation or, in a best case, a cold. I have been wet and cold for three days.
Location: Beyneu, Kazakhstan
May 17, 2023
I have done nothing today. I am exhausted. I have spent the last four nights camping, and I am in desperate need of somewhere quiet, relaxed and at least semi-clean. I paid the house maid to wash my clothes, cleaned and oiled Johnny, ate and hydrated all day.
Location: Beyneu, Kazakhstan
May 18, 2023
The road to Beyneu goes north east for several hundred kilometres, and from here the road now goes south east for 500 km or so. The first 350 km in an almost perfectly straight line, and crosses the border from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan. The soldiers at the Kazakhstan border behaved like children, laughing and asking silly questions. Those on the Uzbekistan side were very professional and welcoming towards me, even though they were very curious about what medicines I was bringing to their country.
Despite knowing that I won’t get the best offer, I changed 100 dollars at the street exchange gentlemen, very helpful though with any information I needed. I lost 10 percent of my money. Still, I became a millionaire as one dollar equals ten thousand in their money. The moment you step into Uzbekistan, the road becomes an absolute nightmare. Concentrating on the few meters ahead of my front wheel for hours on end, staring at the former tarmac to see the best route through it, bracing for bumps, navigating around the biggest holes and trying to stay stable when my wheels gave way through muddy patches, has been mentally debilitating. It took four hours to do 20 km past the border, and the cars and trucks travelling on this road all suffer too. This is the only road between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for over 1500 km, and the only road to Aktau and the Caspian from Uzbekistan.
I looked for shade in a building that turned out to be a restaurant run by two women. I asked for permission to set up the tent behind the building, being completely mentally destroyed from the medieval road. I fell asleep with salt-soaked hair and sticky skin.
Location: Karakalpasktan, Uzbekistan
May 19, 2023
I really don’t want to leave my tent. What’s outside scares me terribly. Terrorists, excessive heat, hunger, or wild animals do not frighten me more than a bumpy road. All right, all right, get out Cornel… trucks pass inches away from me, leaving me in a cloud and a mouth drowned in dust. The drivers seem content with the situation, they do not know any other way of getting around this road. Aiming for the daily hundred kilometers in these conditions seems like mission impossible. The discomfort of the bad road, combined with the fact that there hasn’t been a bend, or god forbid, a hill in it for hundreds of kilometers, and the monotony of the flat, barren landscape is draining my motivation and rewarding me with nothing. No good views on good distances, and civilisation seemed so far away still. I flirt with the idea of trying to cheat somehow. I don’t know how. I apologize for this sentimental outburst but I can’t keep going on like this.
Igor stops the truck and begs me to get into his cabin. “Velo, down” he points to the belly of the trailer. He literally begs me get into his cabin. The cabin door is open, he looks fresh from air conditioning, a huge contrast from the noon heat. Three days ago I was pedaling madly in Kazakhstan to warm up, today I’m looking for a shade in Uzbekistan. “Road no okay 400 km”. Words from his mouth hovers over me like a black cloud. I hesitate for a second, to my shame. But if I get in the cabin, I won’t be me anymore, I will have nightmares. Once I’ve done it, what stops me from doing it the second time, the third time and so on when you hit the weight of the road? How do I justify what I did? I hesitated and I am ashamed for that. “No, I can’t go in the damn cabin”. I point to the bike “I have to pedal”. Then he hands me over a Monster can drink, cold as ice.
Igor leaves without me on the endless river of former asphalt. The road doesn’t care about Johnny, and that concerns me. The road is the road. So whatever comes, I keep going. When I’m knocked down, I have to get up, because there’s no other way. I know what’s out there though, I know because the universe tells me everyday. The universe is saying “Just cycle Cornel” and so I did and still do. They say that at the other end is peace, true happiness for everyone and I must keep going, even if this road makes me bleed. Sometimes it doesn’t, other times I so badly want to just sit down and feel the warmth of the dirt… then I remember why I started this journey and find my rhythm again. Posterity must and will recognize my merits.
Water is my biggest concern, as I have to carry it all and it’s heavy. I am drinking lots in the heat and can go over tens of km between one market and the next, so every drop is important.
One of the drivers points out in the distance to the road under construction which is being built adjacent to the catastrophe I am in. “You better off on that one”. I have seen activity half a kilometer away, but I didn’t dare to think that a highway was being built there. Easy to say, but to get there I have to push the bike through the mud. By the time I reach the “highway” under construction the bike is so clogged that it takes me fifteen minutes to make it reasonably functional… and this effort saved the day. I somehow managed 96 kilometres when I really thought 30 would be impossible.
While setting up the tent I broke one of the aluminium poles. My house is crippled and I am beyond upset. I just bought this tent.
Location: wild camp, Uzbekistan
May 20, 2023
The landscape didn’t change even a little bit today. More flat, empty land. There are no distinguishing features to speak of. There aren’t even mounds or undulations. I have really never seen anything so flat in my life – apart from the ocean. Flat roads don’t involve any effort to climb, but are still remarkably tiring because you have to pedal the whole day; you don’t ever get a downhill where you can freewheel for a few minutes and rest your legs. Add to that the effort of going into the wind, and the uneven road surface which is constantly slowing you down, and it’s been a tiring few days. It’s tiring on the mind too, as there’s nothing in the landscape to distract you or give you something to think about, no navigation to do, no things to look at as you pass by. It is utterly empty, and with it utterly exhausting.
There’s been a train line nearby for the most part of this desert journey and I can see the pylons holding the cables for it for miles and miles until they are too small to spot. At night, when darkness settles, I can see lights from cars and trucks on this road into the very distance. There are no villages for miles, so light beaming from cars is the only unnatural light. Tonight’s camp looks the same too. My Google Maps assures me I have moved forward, though there isn’t much evidence to prove it.
Location: Kyrkkyz, Uzbekistan
May 21, 2023
The road surface did improve a lot. This road I am cycling used to follow the coast of the Aral Sea which was, until late last century, the fourth largest inland sea in the world. The Aral Sea, similar to the Caspian Sea, is a relic of continental drift. It was separated from the ocean hundreds of thousands of years ago and remained a salty body of water, fed by two main rivers, which themselves come from Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. The Aral Sea was once a lush land of farming and fishing, full of different varieties of animals unique to Central Asia, and supporting its own blossoming microclimate in the middle of the Kyzylkum Desert, until the Soviets diverted increasing amounts of its inflows to water cotton and rice fields and the sea started shrinking. Today it is barely 5% of its former size just half a century ago and the water which is left is so concentrated with pesticides, fertilizers and salt that very little can grow or live in it. Whole communities have been devastated, their workers moved to other lakes in Kazakhstan or Russia to look for jobs, the land which once was full of life is now empty and dry and prone to dust storms. The fishing villages are abandoned and the ships beached in what is now a sandy desert. The changing landscape has in turn affected the climate making the area even hotter and regularly reaching 50C in the summer and with less rain in the spring and autumn.
Wanted to reach Nukus today. All I could do was Khodzheli, 10 km shy of Nukus. Past days of desert drained me. I will rest here for couple of days.
Location: Khodzheli, Uzbekistan
3 thoughts on “#10 Into The Steppe”
Partea asta , pare sa fie de anduranta
Tu cu demonul din tine (l-ai batut , grupa mare ), tu cu vremea , drumul (daca santu ala ii drum ), foamea , setea
Johnny si el saracu , o trebuit sa dovedeasca ca ti credincios , si ca te slujeste la bine si la greu , pot sa zic ca , o trecut testu cu brio .
De conditie fizica , ce sa mai vorbim , ne-ai demonstrat la toti cititorii de 50 si sub, cum se pedaleaza ca un profesionist , in toate conditiile .
RESPECT !
Thanks Kaza.
This might be the most exhausting part of the entire journey. Thanks for writing your thoughts down. Push on!