We were extremely careful not to declare anything “our last ____,” but now that it’s happened we actually can. After a late night of hanging out in the desert with our kish lak, our convoy group, we slept in and had our last standard breakfast of oatmeal and coffee then packed up camp. We were just under 200 miles from the city when we began, and we had heard that the roads would be pretty good until the finish line. So, we started out thinking it would be an easy day—a nice cruise into the city.
Nothing beats a roadside hangout?
Of course, we were wrong. We drove along “good” roads for a while and got comfortable with our pace. Then, BOOM! BOOM! We hit a couple potholes and blew out two tires. The Skoda was following close behind us and swerved quickly, making it out unscathed and ready to help us out. A few moments later, while we were checking out the car, we heard it again, BOOM! BOOM! A Mongolia family hit the same potholes and blew out two tires and sent a metal ring flying into Fabian. Luckily, Fabian sustained no injuries.
We had some problems, though. We had two completely flat tires and one spare. We put the spare on one punctured tire and then went through our options. We had a good tire on a bad rim, a bad tire on a good rim, and a can of fix-a-flat. The best option was for Fabian and Oskar to go into town to have the good parts put together while we waited on the side of the road, so the rescue Skoda went to work. A few moments later, Daniel and Markus returned after hanging out with a bunch of Rally teams a few miles up the road. If only we could have been with them! There was a Panda! Instead, we got out the fix-a-flat just for ha-ha’s. Naturally, when the tire comes off the rim, it doesn’t work and the tire comes completely off. We packed the destroyed tire away and got out the soccer ball, Frisbee, and camp chairs. The Mongolian family came over, and we started a play party on the side of the road.
#134. Team Turnagain!
A few hours later, Fabian and Oskar returned, and within minutes, we were back on the road! The rest of the drive was beautiful, and the Panda held up. As we came into town, the Panda did start making a few funny noises (and according to Daniel, we lost a part that hit his car?), but we turned up the music, made it through insane U.B. traffic, and crossed the finish line with our convoy!!!! Time to celebrate!
Today’s lesson: If it seems easy at the start, it’s not. Also, WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOORAY!!!!
We began our day with hot breakfast at our camp beneath the snow-capped peaks, which Chase did not want to leave. We checked the altimeter on our map-less Garmin to see that we were at around 8,000 feet, so no wonder it was a bit chilly up there. By a bit chilly, we mean the tent was covered in ice when we woke up in the morning. We lost a bit of elevation (maybe 2,000 feet in the first hour) as we started driving in the direction of Hovd.
Convoy line-up
Since the winding paths we assumed were roads all looked the same but took off in different directions through the mountains, we struggled with directions for a while and were pointed in the right way by some friendly locals in a Land Cruiser. Their directions specified a right turn, a mini river crossing, and then a bigger river crossing before reaching town.
Daniel and one Norwegian plate!
The mini river crossing turned out to be the more difficult of the two. Three cars went through. The Skoda and the Suzuki both lost their front license plates while the Panda got a flat tire. Chase changed the tire (luckily we kept getting the punctured tires repaired in town and were ready with two spares) while Daniel and Oskar went swimming. One Norwegian plate found, one Swedish plate found, one good tire back on the Panda, and we were back on the road. All this drama before 10 A.M.!
With a few of our new friends
Moments later, we joined up with the Commonwealth team and the Norwegian Pandas as we all stopped to admire a herd of camels. (Is herd the proper term for a group of camels? Anyhoo, there were about 30 camels standing in the middle of the road, and we had to wait for them to pass.) Our convoy stayed together as we crossed the “bigger river,” which everyone navigated with success! This river turned out to be quite a bit wider but significantly shallower than the first, so not only was it a successful crossing but also a fun time to play.
One of the best parts of Hovd, a giant boot!
We loved having the big convoy together again for the first time since the previous morning near the border. Like that morning, the big group didn’t stay a big group for long. When we pulled into Hovd, we stopped to chat with several teams on the side of the road, even a few teams that were abandoning their cars at that point. (We were still so thankful for the Panda’s miraculous ability to repair herself, aside from the flat tires!) In town, we made our usual circuit of the market, the gas station, and the mechanics. Since Daniel and the Norwegian Pandas were at two different mechanics, we bounced between the two before bouncing out of town with the Swedes and plans to meet up on the road later.
Have we mentioned Mongolian horses yet?
The roads were slow-moving once again with brief moments of pavement, including one very clear in our memories. After the events of the day before, we had our muffler propped on the hat rack/trunk cover, a place that we would learn was precariously above a six-pack of Russian beer. Upon hitting a tiny bump (shockingly small actually considering the usual craters we tried to avoid), the muffler tipped and punctured a bottle. With your average beer, a small puncture would be no problem. With a 2.5 Liter bottle, we had a beer fountain on our hands. Let’s just say, the Panda had a new fragrance. We did our best, however, to air it out camping that night in a nice spot between mountains and gers.
We woke up to another incredible breakfast at An Artisan’s Guesthouse and then squeezed in a yoga session before heading out of town. On our way to Karakol Coffee, we passed a parking lot full of Mongol Rally cars and invited the ones that were ready to go to join us. Our last stop at Karakol Coffee was just as perfect as the first—good times with good people. We are so thankful to Aikerim. She said that she didn’t do anything, but she really did everything to make our time in Karakol wonderful just by being there and being her (and in doing so attracting a great group of people).
Every now and then a break was mandatory...
Team Turnagain headed out of Karakol in convoy with the Elephants and the Lumberyaks. Together, we passed some of the most beautiful landscape of our trip. Yes, some of that journey was the most technically demanding driving of the Rally—we took the Panda across a gravel mountain pass that was over 6,000 feet in elevation where cows, sheep, and goats roam about and are herded by the folks living in the surrounding yurts—but those few hours were unforgettable. From the pass, we re-joined the main road leading us to the eastern border crossing of Lake Issyk Kul. As far as border crossings go, it was a good one: all three teams made it across in a fairly timely order, the Kyrgyz guards called us “G-Unit” and “Pamela Anderson,” and the Kazakh guard went through Chase’s passport and pointed to the landscape photos to indicate whether or not Kazakhstan had the featured animal or type of monument.
From the border, we traveled across more breathtaking mountains until the sun set. It was our first time driving west, and we were driving into the sunset (either we’re doing something very right or very wrong). Not long after sunset, the Elephants blew a tire, and we had a bit of roadside repair by flashlight to prepare for the last stretch into Almaty. As we entered the city, the Elephants, our lead car, separated from us and the Lumberyaks, leaving us a little lost. As luck would have it, the five star Rixos Hotel was nearby, and they allowed us to use their wifi and complimentary city maps to find our way to the Almaty Backpackers’ Hostel. Now, the décor of the hostel in no way compared to that of the Rixos, but the people there absolutely made our evening—other Mongol Ralliers! We grabbed supplies from a nearby shop and made dinner with the Lumberyaks, which led to a late-night session with the Rally crew.
Starting Point: N42°29E78°22 Ending Point: N43°13E76°56 Distance Traveled: 248.9 miles
We were not able to see much of the landscape as we drove southeast the night before and so we imagined hills or desert. When the sun came up, we found ourselves in the middle of open desert with camels surrounding our camp! It was quite early, but we said goodbye to the one member of From Denmark to Mongolia that was awake and left a note for the Thunderyaks, knowing that we would see them again sometime soon.
We had hoped to make it to Aralsk the night before, but we weren’t disappointed when it only took an hour to reach there in the morning. We entered the town and passed under an archway with an anchor on it, hoping to see some remainder of the former port on the Aral Sea—a sea that has tragically receded from where it once bordered the town. Passing near the town square, we met a French backpacker traveling solo by train throughout the region, who helped us examine our options for seeing ships in the desert. From what he had found, a Jeep tour was the best idea but we didn’t have time to do a tour and still make our goal of Bishkek the next evening. So, we thanked our new friend and spent a little while wondering around town then continued southeast.
About an hour outside Aralsk, we spotted a view tower that we could climb. From there, we could see a small body of water that used to be part of the massive sea. Leaving the view tower, we had nice roads, and then the roads started to be not-so-nice. After being pulled over yet again for a curiosity stop, we picked up a nail in our tire. Luckily, Chase is quite skilled when it comes to fixing flats, so we got the Panda back in shape and continued our journey.
We had a few more miles of deceptively nice roads before the road monster roared its ugly head. Driving to Kyzylorda was hell. Sandstorms blew up as we bounced along the small roads that resembled Swiss cheese with so many potholes. Seemingly mocking our attempts were construction crews working on brand new roads a few meters away. We eventually got out of the area with minimal damage to the Panda and were happy to be pulled over by the police yet again as we entered Kyzylorda.
All smiles with the flat tire, but by the end of the day, we were exhausted!
Just outside the city, we realized we had again missed a time zone change as the sun set shockingly early according to our clocks. As the highway between Kyzylorda and Turkestan was filled with lane changes and animals on the road, we pulled off near Zhanakorgan to rest and recover from a long, crazy day of driving.