Cycling Day 1: Almaty to Akterek

I got up early to start my ride. Elmira (Murat’s mom) and her husband saw me off. They were very generous and tried to give me a bunch of road snacks as I left. They gave me a large bag of “khurt” (қүрт), which is dried, raw cow’s milk in candy form. For some reason it’s very salty, and I’m not a big fan, but I accepted it and headed out. I beat the rush hour traffic out of Almaty. When I had previously looked up the cycling route, the suggested route was very roundabout and wound its way through the countryside. I was a little intimidated by both the distance, and the fact that there didn’t appear to be a lot in these places and I was worried about finding somewhere to stay. After some googling I found a bike tour blog that claimed to have ridden on the A-2, the main highway out of Almaty.

Riding out of Almaty

Riding on the side of the highway wasn’t amazing, the road is pretty good so the cars were quite fast. But there was a shoulder, and the entire way to Targap was a 4-lane highway. After Targap, there is a lot of construction going on and the highway narrows to two lanes with a much smaller shoulder. As the cars whizzed by, they gave me a little bit of space but the road was not accommodating. I ended up riding the last 10 miles or so on the packed gravel on the side of the road - it was a little uneven, but a thousand times less stressful than having semis pass within inches of my handlebars. I had some flashbacks to my ride to San Salvador, but at least this road was as flat as a plateau, so I didn’t have an issue keeping my line.

I liked that they put actual strings on the instrument on this monument.

My original goal for today was to ride to Targap, and I arrived around noon. Unfortunately, it is a very rural farming community, without so much as a store or restaurant. Just farm houses, horses and cows, and the old Russian gas line infrastructure lining the street, about 10 feet high along the property lines, replete with U-bends common in above-ground gas infrastructure to prevent backflow. 

It was already starting to heat up by the time I got to Targap and I rode through town, hoping to find a place to cool off, but to no avail. So I went back to the highway, where there was a decent rest stop (there seem to be rest stops every 10-15 miles or so). I was hot at this point. Very hot. I don’t know what my appearance was, and I attracted a lot of stares, but it’s hard to know whether that was due to the bike and my outfit or the layers of crusty salt that forms on my face and shirt from sweating profusely for hours on end.

A little bit of gravel on the way to Targap, I hopped off the highway for this, but it wasn’t sustainable

I went into a restaurant that had air conditioning and sat in front of the AC unit. The restaurant was staffed entirely by children - I presume they were on summer break. I bought a cold 1L bottle of water and drained the entire thing in one go. Then I sat at the table and tried to cool off. But the children wanted to know what I wanted to eat. I didn’t know how to say “just give me a minute” in Russian, I just told them that I was hot (жарко) but maybe I was asking for hot food? I ordered some plov, rice with lamb meat and onions and took another water bottle from the fridge.

One of the girls was eager to practice her English with me. She said that she was 12 and went to school in Targap and asked me where I was from. That was about the extent of it, but she lit up at the prospect of speaking English.

Today, for the most part, I’ve found after leaving Almaty that I am encountering fewer people who speak Russian. Perhaps things willful, but when interacting with people at a couple of stops, they either do not understand me or they answer in Kazakh.

I sat in the restaurant for about 3 hours, cooled off and ate the plov. As I suited back up in the parking lot, a man came up to me and started asking about my trip. Always the usual questions. Then he pulled out 2,000 Tenge (about $5) and handed it to me  I tried to refuse, but my handle on Russian is too weak to have control of such a situation, so I begrudgingly accepted. He told me I needed it to spend on food and water, which is exactly what I did.

I figured I would get a head start on tomorrow’s ride to Bishkek and see where I might end up today. The narrow road and precious heat exposure had fried my nervous system. Oh, and this was my first day riding with all of the weight in tow. It was 5:00 and I was toasted. I lay down at the gas station and contemplated life. I wasn’t sure where I was going to sleep but seemed like there was a lot of space around me where I could pitch my tent, and I wasn’t worried.

After about an hour, a guy came up and started talking to me, asking me about my trip and where I’m from, and if I liked hockey and basketball, etc. He asked if I was riding further and I told him I was very tired, so he’s said “come with me,” so I followed him for about another minute down the road from the gas station. He took me to a work encampment for construction workers. As I mentioned earlier, they are doing a major overhaul of this rode in what is likely a years-long project, and they have a base where everyone sleeps when they are on-site, there isn’t a whole lot in terms of amenities in this area, otherwise.

Drinking water fountain coming out of a bear

Then he proceeded to show me around the encampment - toilets, some huts and barracks for the workers, showers, drinking water, and a cafeteria. He showed me to a row of beds underneath a shelter that I could use without a tent, it had a direct view of the highway, but I was too tired to care.

This is the shelter where I slept on one of these beds - supplemented by my sleeping pad. The camp security guard came during the night and threw some blankets over me

Then he sat with me showed me a bunch of pictures of his family and some videos of one of his son’s latest wrestling tournament, he’s 10 and he took 2nd place. 

He went home after that, I guess he lives pretty close by and has a horse ranch, so he doesn’t need to stay at the camp. 

I went to the cafeteria and they gave me a ration of food, even though I was not on the construction team - pasta, chicken, lentil soup and potatoes. It really hit the spot.

Construction worker rations

There were a lot of workers, I can’t really tell how many because people were disappearing and reappearing from the camp. I would guess maybe 30-40 at least. They also looked like they were from a variety of nationalities. There were quite a few military-aged Russian men. Actually someone randomly came up to me and asked if I was Russian and if I had any rubles on me. I talked to one guy who is a truck driver from Mongolia, but he’s ethnically Kazakh. He said he was born and raised in Mongolia but lives in a city where there are only Kazakh people. Some of the workers also looked like they were maybe from Afghanistan, Iran or some other middle eastern countries. 

Then I washed my clothes and took a shower - I actually got a pretty decent shower with warm water! As I was organizing my bike for the morning, some people brought me bread and apples for my ride. 

It’s far from luxurious or glamorous, and this has been a very “figure it out” kind of evening. I’m comfortable and everyone has been very kind. 

View of the camp barracks with the mountains in the back