Day 43, to Karaul, Kazakhstan 132km , 3605km to date,  764m up, 764m end

A long day on rough pavement, somewhat uphill, hot and with a headwind strong at times.  The full day was 188km, but I rode the truck after 132km - if I’d gone any longer I was worried I’d be really breaking myself.  

Something that adds to the “feel good” about this wander through strange countries is that one’s belief in the human race is strongly reinforced, two examples:

Whilst riding I always either nod or wave to people, it is very rare that they don’t more than respond.  At one point on the previous ride day I passed a policeman that had just finished dealing with a truck, when he saw me, a big wave which I returned, then as I rode past him, he snapped to attention and saluted me.

A second example:  after we crossed into Kazakhstan some of the riders had no local currency nor Russian rubles left, two of the guys (Mike/Frieder) stopped at a small store hoping to buy a coke using a charge card, but the store couldn’t accept a charge card.  Mike was down about that as he really needed a cold drink.  Then a young man appeared and gave him a coke that he had bought for them simply as a gift.

As you know, it is important to eat on trips like this and eat a lot!  We commonly refer to first lunch and second lunch etc., So for dinner last night it was a salad starter, then a large bowl of pasta with 1st beer, then each of us had a pizza with 2nd beer, then desert (pic below), and on the walk back to the hotel, a 2nd ice cream.

There were only two “corner stores” on the route today, this was at the second one:

pic outside rest.: