Kazakhstan - Plans Goes Pear-Shaped in Almaty - Part Two
Michael the mechanic was happy to see us again. He and Colin have a nice bromance going on. He arranged to have another auto electrician test Lolly and once again we were told that the error codes were cleared.
We booked another night in the weird hotel, but when we went to check in they said they had no record of our booking. The receptionists just kept talking at us in Russian, then on a translation app said they had no spare rooms which we found a bit hard to believe. We kept showing them our Booking.com confirmation but they just shrugged and turned away. We sat in their lobby while we looked for another hotel, hoping they might realise their mistake, but eventually when Colin showed them our booking again they pointed out we’d booked their sister hotel in another district - hmmm. We bid a hasty retreat and walked the 10 minutes up the road to a different hotel which seemed slightly friendlier.
We went into central Almaty in the evening for a bite to eat. On the way back, our Yandex driver was very pleased to have tourists in his car and stopped off to run into a shop and returned with a bar of Kazakh chocolate for us. Can you imagine a British taxi driver doing that?
The following morning Lolly was back in the garage having the hose connections improved. We didn’t get finished with them until mid afternoon, but couldn’t wait to get out of the city and head south to an area with popular lakes about 300 km from Almaty. As we left the city behind, Colin was delighted that at last Lolly was driving much smoother and with more power. The horrible black exhaust fumes had disappeared too.
We pulled off the main road to a nice overnight spot, before continuing on towards Saty, the jumping off town to visit the lakes. We called in at a viewpoint for the Black Canyon, which is part of the larger Charyn Canyon and has dark volcanic rock walls with the blue Charyn river running through.
The scenery got more dramatic and we spotted many eagles at the side of the road. As we got closer to Saty, the road became more undulating, and as Colin pushed to go up a hill, a dreaded warning light came on, then another one and Lolly lost power again. Nooooo - we felt so deflated. To top it all, as we went down the hills we could smell burning, and realised the new brake pads were on fire. We pulled over as quickly as we could - we guess that's what happens when you use Chinese parts called 'Noveco'. As we were waiting for the brakes to cool down, a truck driver pulled up to check we were OK and gave us both a bar of chocolate - Kazakh people are the best.
The weather had become quite missly, so we decided to visit the smaller Lake Kaindy first. We had read many vehicles take a taxi up to the parking lot from the main road, and as we slipped our way up the first steep muddy section we could understand why, however once we reached the ticket barrier the road had recently been paved. It was raining quite steadily when we reached the car park, so we sat it out for an hour or two before doing the short hike to the lake. There was a good metal walkway that ran by and over the clean rushing river.
The lake is a beautiful sight. It was created in 1911, when an earthquake triggered a landslide that dammed up a mountain gorge and flooded a spruce forest. The tops of hundreds of dead spruce trees stick out of the turquoise water. The cold water means they haven't decomposed over the years. We had the pleasure of watching the many tourists stand in front of the beautiful view having photos taken in every ridiculous pose they could, then just as you think they're done, they change outfits. I had to lead Colin away by his elbow as he was about to push one of them in the water.
We walked back to Lolly. We had planned to park for the night in the park, so that we could visit the lake in the morning light before all the hoards of tourists arrived. We asked one of the attendants in the car park and he said we could park up, but said our entry ticket expires at midnight, so we must go back to the ticket kiosk and purchase a ticket for the following day. We thought that wasn't a problem as the ticket was valid for the other lake we were visiting the following day. When we asked the ticket lady for the ticket she said we were forbidden to spend the night in the park due to fire risk, but said camping is allowed at the other lake, so we gave up and found a nice park up spot next to a river just outside Saty.
The following morning we drove the short distance to Kolsay lake. We were surprised how busy it was at 9 o'clock in the morning. We'd been told to avoid weekends, but it was only Thursday. We grabbed a coffee before walking down to the lake which is in a very pretty Alpine setting. There are actually three lakes. The second lake is a 3 hour trek one-way from the first lake, and we decided we didn't have the water or energy foods to get us there and back, so while virtually all the other tourists were heading to the boat station on the lake, we walked down the path on the other side that leads on to the second lake, to the far end of the first lake seeing very few other people. The track was a bit muddy in places where the horses had churned it up in the wet weather. We had considered doing a horse trek to the second lake, but we're glad we didn't as the path was very narrow and steep in places which would have been a bit treacherous after the rain.
We retraced our steps to the entrance to the lake and continued on round to the boat station with the intention to join the other tourists and rent a pedalo to go round the lake.
Before doing this we had to climb up over 200 steps to reach a toilet, but the restaurant there had great views over the lake, so we got a jug of fresh juice and a snack and sat on the balcony, once again being entertained by all the ladies posing for photos - do they not realise how daft they look standing on one leg with an arm in the air?
We hired a pedalo for 45 minutes, so there wasn't much time to pause to admire the views, but it was pleasant.
We had spotted a nice park up spot a couple of kms from the lake car park next to a river. It was a popular spot for locals to pull up in their cars, get out a blanket and have a picnic or even cook a meal. They might also have a pray, fill water bottles or wash car mats while they were there. We had several come over and ask if they could borrow cooking utensils. They always insisted on giving us something in return - watermelon, beers or even a sheep's head was offered - Colin was quick to tell them that we are vegetarians. It was a nice spot and we had some phone signal, so we decided to spend the next day here doing the usual never ending list of truck repairs, cleaning and social media updates.
We had the weekend to fill before going back to Almaty for Monday to get the next lot of issues looked at by Iveco. We were conscious that the popular attractions would be rammed with weekend visitors, so we made our way to Bestybinskoye Reservoir that read as being a nice location that didn't get too crowded. It was a very scenic drive there.
We got a lovely spot overlooking the reservoir. There were quite a few people driving by who stopped here to take photos of the view which shows we were in a good spot. Not long after we pulled up, Judith and Eric called to say they'd spotted we were in the area (from our Polarsteps location) and said they weren't far away and would it be OK to join us. We were obviously very happy to see them again. We had a nice afternoon and evening catching up with them and discussing future travel plans. They were heading back into Kyrgyzstan the following day to collect a permit needed to visit areas bordering China and use up the remaining week of their visa free allowance.
They broke for the border very early in the morning, while we had a leisurely morning before setting off to visit another reservoir on the route back towards Almaty. As we were leaving it had clouded over and we had some welcome rain while we were driving.
The next reservoir, Bartogay Lake, was about 15km off the main road. Gravel tracks led down to the waters edge and we found a good level spot to park up. The water was a lovely turquoise colour. There were a few other cars there, some people fishing, but by late afternoon we had the whole place to ourselves. The wind that had whipped up in the afternoon calmed down and we were able to sit out and enjoy the sunset.
So it was back to Almaty the following morning to see Michael at Iveco again. He told us he didn't have the Iveco software diagnostics kit at their office (which maybe is a good thing as it seemed to be misdiagnosing things so far), so he went with Colin to another workshop to use their kit. Another Iveco engineer based in Astana could operate the software remotely. He could even start Lolly's engine remotely which Colin said was a bit disconcerting. After running the checks four times and at different revs, he concluded it was the high pressure pump that needed changing. Colin was told that there were none of these in Almaty and it could take up to two weeks to get an Iveco part shipped here. Not the news we wanted to hear with just a week to go before our China transit to Mongolia.
I had been waiting in the Iveco office, wondering what the other three 'salesmen' did. I didn't see them making phone calls, two disappeared after lunch and the remaining one fell asleep at his desk and started snoring.
Colin and Michael returned with Lola, Michael's wife. She had made a chilled soup that Colin had commented he'd seen people eating at the car bazaar the previous week. It is called Okroshka and it is made with finely chopped potatoes, cucumbers, radishes, fresh dill, soured cream and little pieces of chopped meat. She added ice cubes and brought along home made croutons and bread. It was absolutely delicious and perfect for a hot day - yet another demonstration of how kind Kazakh people are. Michael had been making calls to suppliers around the city to source the pressure pump. The only option appeared to be a company that could get a non-Iveco part shipped from Turkey within 2 to 3 days. We had to pay cash up front to get it secured and Michael said he would get Kamaz lined up to fit the new pump on the Friday.
Our original plan had been to visit the Altyn-Emel National Park, northeast of Almaty on the way to the China border, where there are some stunning steppe, desert and mountain landscapes to see. Realising this was now not possible to fit in with our timescales, we decided to book onto a two day tour so that we weren't sitting around in Almaty twiddling our thumbs waiting for the pressure pump to arrive. On the evening before the tour we met up with Teresa and German Colin (our Russia transit companions) at an Irish bar in central Almaty. They had just arrived in the city and had some vehicle servicing to get done (not as drastic as ours) and were planning a trip back to Germany for a couple of weeks before continuing on through Asia. It was great catching up with them having not seen each other since the beginning of May in the Mangystau region of Kazakhstan.
The following day we met our tour group in central Almaty at midday. There were 13 of us with two guides, put into three cars and we were soon speeding out of the city on the 4 hour drive to the National Park. We were overnighting at a homestay guesthouse in Basshi, the village at the entrance to the park.
We dropped off our overnight bags and went straight into the park to visit one of the main attractions - The Singing Dune. It was about another 1 1/2 hour drive on rough corrugated roads to reach it. The dune is about 150m high and 3 km long, and when it is dry as you slide across the sand it emits a deep humming (or singing) sound as the dry sand rubs over the damp sand underneath. It wasn't easy to walk up the dune in the soft deep sand as the wind picked up, but we were rewarded with sweeping views of the surrounding area in the nice late afternoon light. The guides then got us to sit down in a rowing position and start to slide on our backsides down the slope and we did create the deep humming sound. By the time we reached the bottom we had sand stuck in every orifice. The sun was setting as we drove back to the guesthouse.
In the guesthouse they separated girls and boys, so while I slept in a room with 5 other ladies, Colin got a large double bed in a room with just a young guy from Hong Kong. Dinner was served in a yurt and we were entertained by our guide, Gin, who was quite a character and not a bad singer. He asked for some audience participation which as you can see Colin struggled with. One of the German girls on the tour joined Gin, and it felt a little surreal listening to them sing Creep (Radiohead) in a yurt in Kazakhstan.
We were woken at 5.30 a.m. the following morning to have breakfast and be on the road to reach the Aktau Mountains site before it got too hot. It was about a 2 hour drive to get there. After Mangystau we were worried these might be an anticlimax, but the sedimentary cliffs were very photogenic with white, red, orange and green colours.
The next stop was at the Katutau Mountains, which are volcanic formations created when an underwater volcano erupted. There was one particular strikingly shaped rock that was central to the site where the group sat in the shade to take in the views.
The final site we visited was the 700 year old willow tree which stands in an oasis in the park and is fed by warm natural spring water (which we were warned not to drink as it contains radon). Legend has it that Genghis Khan sat under this tree with his army during his Central Asian Campaigns, but the guide said willow trees only tend to live for around 200 years and Genghis Khan died 799 years ago, so told us to believe what we want.
We were driven back to the guesthouse to have lunch and collect our belongings. We had a quick look in the small park museum which has exhibits on the flora and fauna in the park, and shows excavated bones of the rhino like animals that used to roam the lands here.
Although it would have been nice to visit the park in Lolly, we are glad we did the tour and maybe it was better we didn't bring Lolly on the corrugated roads which would have rattled the habitation box badly.
Back in Almaty, the pressure pump had actually turned up on the first day of our tour, so on Friday morning Colin was down at Kamaz overseeing the fitting of it. It all seemed to go in smoothly. We had another appointment in the afternoon to have our solar panels inspected. We have one large panel and two smaller ones. The smaller ones have not been working properly for some time, and in the extreme heat, the larger one wasn't working so effectively and the charge had been getting critically low, even after several hours of driving, with the fridge battling to keep things cool. We set off in Lolly to go to the solar panel place, and as we pulled out of Kamaz we instantly knew things were wrong. Lolly had no power and was spluttering terribly. We had to turn around and limp back to Kamaz. Colin was hoping maybe they hadn't wired something correctly on the new pressure pump, but the mechanics rechecked it and gave us the bad news that it was installed correctly. Michael returned, and said he'd spoken to his colleague in Astana, who said it must be a fuel injector issue. Colin questioned this as he had seen the diagnostics test on the injectors had given a clean bill of health, but Michael said the only way to thoroughly test them was to remove them and take them to a Bosch Service Centre. It was Friday afternoon (POETS day) so Kamaz said they couldn't remove the injectors until Monday, and Bosch weren't convinced they could look at them until Tuesday. We really were despairing now as we realised we couldn't make the China border for Monday morning. Michael could see our anguish and tried to reassure us he was with us until the end and they would get this sorted. Annoyingly the solar panel company were chasing us, even though Colin had let the boss know we couldn't make it - their internal communication has been non-existent and they have let us down twice with previous appointments where they failed to show up.
We had arranged to take Michael and his family out for dinner that evening to thank him for his continued efforts that we are not paying for. His local shashlik restaurant was closed for refurbishment, so we met at an Asian restaurant which had a big menu choice including some of our old Georgian favourites. Michael selected a meal that came with a 3 litre keg of lager which didn't last long. We had another lovely evening with them. At one point Michael ran off to buy me some flowers as he said he could see I had been very stressed by the whole situation this week.
So we had more time to try and fill in Almaty which we were desperate to leave. Colin now had an appointment with the solar guys at 5pm on Saturday. We were hopeful that we might finally be able to tick off one issue from our list.
We took a taxi over to a large shopping mall in the other side of the city for a couple of hours for something to do in an air-conditioned space. We both hate shopping, so that shows how desperate times are.
Colin was back with Lolly well before 5 pm to meet the solar guy. By 5.30 there was still no sign, then 6 pm came and went. The light was going, so how could they check the solar panels when they need sunshine? As you can imagine Colin wasn't in a great mood when the young chap turned up at 6.30. He was very apologetic saying he'd been held up on a large installation project he is working on. He had no tools with him or ladder to get on the roof. He scrambled up on the roof and had another colleague on the phone remotely who was giving instructions on what to check. They established where the issue was, which turned out to be a diode that had perished in the extreme heat. He removed it and said we didn't need a new one for the solar panels to work effectively again. We wouldn't know if the system was working again until the following day when it was getting sunshine.
The following day (Sunday) Colin went to see Lolly and was very pleased to see all panels were working again. We waited until later in the afternoon to get a taxi into town where we revisited the Green Bazaar, had a stroll through the park and ended up having dinner at a restaurant opposite the opera house. We were both feeling anxious about what the following day would bring for prospects of getting Lolly back on the road.
To be continued.......Apologies this has turned into such a long saga.......
Oh noooooo, part 3 ,,, what is happening?, your fans need to know !!!! ,,, seriously, we both hope there is some good news at the end . G and L x