West Kazakhstan

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The trip to Kazakhstan started with our “breakfast included” in Astrakhan. And with a lot of repairs. The starter didnt want to do his work any more and the gearbox was leaking. Could fix both, but it took some time. Now its like new and we could go to the next country. The war to the border was funny, had to cross some old ponton bridge. Cool!
Border crossing itself went without troubles. Very fast and very friendly. We also met a german couple tramping to Kazakhstan at the border. Crossing by foot is impossible here, so we took them along. Had a nights stay at the caspian sea, then went on to Atyrau.
The streets are catastrophal, but my car was made for them. Finally we are one of the fastest cars here 🙂
From Atyrau to Aralsk (I wanted to see Lake Aral) its one big adventure. We found some short cut and it only took 2 days and 950km to get there. Everything in our car was nicely covered in a lot of dust. But still better, than taking the “good street”. This would have been boring 1700km.

Lake Aral is not like it once was. We tried to get to the water, but thats not easy. Near Aralsk its not too bad, just 15km from the original beach. Then we tried to get eastwards and had to do our own road 😀 FUN FUN FUN! Like driving in the desert.
The road eastwards is new. Perfect. Boring. Decided to race and just do a short stopover in Baikonur. Would have been interesting, if the city was open to visitors. But it isnt 🙁
Here we decided to look for interesting things and found out we can go to Kirgistan without visa. YAY YAY!
Did 820km that day. We have to speed up a little, to compensate for some extra 1500km…..

IMG_7504 IMG_7509 IMG_7513 IMG_7521 IMG_7631 IMG_7642 IMG_7700 IMG_7714 IMG_7804 IMG_7873 IMG_7880 Planung

^^ the new travel plan…. IMG_7973 IMG_8016 IMG_8028 IMG_8070 IMG_8119

^^normal road in the West IMG_8183 IMG_8221IMG_8228

^^ there it is. Lake Aral.IMG_8243

^^reduce air pressure and nothing will stop us IMG_8257  IMG_8302

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^^Baikonur Cosmodrome. this is everything you can see, when you pass it.IMG_8357 IMG_8395 ^^ cleaning the car. It was VERY necessary……