2992

That's right, 2992km.  Just arrived in Oskamen, or Ust-Kamenogorsk, depending on which map you look at, and if it uses the Kazakh names or Soviet names.  On the approach to the city, the houses somehow started looking different.  They are small wooden houses with steep pitched roofs and shutters of varying colors.  There are still potatoes growing in the yard and cows roaming about, but it just looks very different than the earth and mud houses we have been seeing throughout the rest of our trip.  It definitely feels much more Russian.

Ok- so that posting failed because all six of the staff at the internet cafe had to go on break for half an hour and none of them could give us more time on the computer.  Really.
Now, we are in Shaminaikha, a town only 23 km from the Russian border!  Foreigners are not allowed to use this crossing though, so we have to go down the road another 150 km or so to enter at a different border point. It feels pretty wild that we are about to enter a new country, and even more incredible that a whole month has gone by and we are now half way through our trip!  Kazakhstan has gone by even faster than Kyrgyzstan.
Similarly to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan has sort of divided itself in two parts, in terms of our trip.  Steppe/desert and taiga/rainforest.  Since writing from the "apple people's" house, we got into a stretch of country that is "The Vast and Endless Steppe".  On the map this area had a bunch of funny little symbols, that I now realize mean desert!  A Czech couple had warned us about this area of "nothing".  No people, no water, not even a tree for shade.  I have walked and biked across a few stretches of desert, and we were sort of girding up for some harsh conditions.  Perhaps because of this, it wasn't that bad.  It did look vast and endless, with far away hills shimmering in the distance, hovering above the horizon, and only the train rumbling by to separate time and space.
We got ourselves into a program of waking up at five, so we could bike when it was still cool, and carrying four gallons of water at a time.  There did end up being a few shrubs to hide under for shade, and there were enough towns or random cafes to get water at, that it was tolerable.  I adopted a new mantra during this stretch, 'tailwinds', only focusing on what I want.
This was the program up until the town of Georgievka, which we reached ten days ago.  From that day until today, there have been thunderstorms and it has poured rain, at least once a day.  It has gotten greener, lusher, and more Russian feeling the farther north we go.  We are now in the land of mushrooms and strawberries!  There are people everywhere harvesting these coveted items.  More than once, while setting up the tent by the side of some field, a rough looking man has wandered through the woods by the tent.  At first it was a bit unnerving.  Are these the drunks people warned us about?
The rain has put us on its program.  Sleep later if it pours first thing in the morning, take a long lunch and hide until it stops, make camp before it storms again.  So, this morning when we awoke to red skies, I took warning.  The rain held off long enough to pack up, but then it kept on till noon, when we reached town and a gazebo to eat our lunch under.  I think we fit right in at the park, amongst the kids driving mini-cars around the playground with blaring music, and the girls learning to rollerblade.
This town is pretty much blessed in my book.  It is always the towns you expect nothing in that are the best. Our bikes got a shower, we got a hot shower, and the kind manager of the hotel is letting us use her computer.
I like to think that by biking we are making everyone happy.  When they see us out their car windows in the pouring rain they think, 'at least that's not me'.
Hope you are all feeling blessed as well.  Peace out, Adrianne and Tyler

Sir, They Are As Dumb As We Thought

While riding past a firing range for large armored vehicles, we spotted a fine campsite, but we decided to keep pedaling.  The hunt for good camping occupies a large part of our time, from examining maps looking for rivers, to scanning horizons searching for clumps of trees far enough from the road to discourage curious folks from visiting our campsite in the middle of the night.

Here in Kazakhstan, finding a good spot is easier in some ways and more challenging in others than it was in Kyrgyzstan.  There are fewer people here, and a whole lot more space.  But much of that space is peopleless for good reason, as it is also free of flowing water or trees.  It was the presence of a few trees that made the firing range spot so desirable.  It was fun to imagine some Kazakh soldiers discovering a journal filled with a string of very bizarre Russian words.  "Today, gas station woman give melon and chocolate and almonds.  She very nice.  We very tired.  We smile big."  Here is the evidence, sir.  The tourists are absolute morons.

The little bit of Russian we do know is proving very useful and is leading to some amazing interactions here in Kazakhstan.  Almost every day, we have been given gifts by the very kind folks who live here.  After they get a handle on their disbelief that we are from the US and that we are riding our bikes to Mongolia, we are presented with treasures.

Just the other day, we were making a pretty standard resupply stop in Taldikorghan, a small city in eastern Kazakhstan.  The plan was to purchase; bread, cheese, almonds, meat stick, cucumbers, snacks and a few other treats to fill up our food bags.  By the time we were following the very friendly man on the motor scooter guiding us out of the city in our mini parade, we had been given pounds of treats;  1 plastic comb, 3 cans of beef and barley, 2 cans of mackerel, 2 cans of sprats, 1 pound of raisins, 1 pound of dried apricots, 1 package of wafer treats, 1 large box of assorted cookies, 2 green t-shirts, and 1 five ruble note from 1909.

We are having a pretty wonderful time, and look forward to telling the stories in person.
This post is being written from the home of some very friendly folks who were selling apples on the side of the road.  We did not have a chance to buy any apples before we had been invited in for tea, and dinner and showers and a place to spend the night.  Amazing.

Thank you for the continued good thoughts and prayers.  They are working.

Take care-
              Tyler and Adrianne

Stop, Please Stop

"Akyuda!"
All throughout Kyrgyzstan, whenever we were spotted by the locals, this question often preceded hello.  It made little difference whether we were spotted by folks in the same tiny store, or by people on very distant hillsides.  "Where are you from?" is the question everyone was asking.  Sometimes we would hear the question shouted by people from impossible distances.  We have grown quite accustomed to yelling back to unknown interrogators, "Amyerika!"

It was therefore quite startling to be riding along a smooth Kazakh road in the middle of a very hot day and hear a small voice from the other side implore in English, "Stop.   Please, Stop."

What else could we possibly do, the voice had said, "please".  We stopped, and the young man who had made the request made his way across the narrow highway.  In what way is this person hoping we can help him?  We were wondering if he needed medical attention or help moving something, but it was not quite like that. 

"I have a lake.  It is very hot.  You are cycling. Would you like to swim? Please come swim."
What else could we possibly do, he had said, "please", and also at that precise moment, there really was nothing that we would rather have been doing, than swimming in his lake.  He might as well have descended on a cloud,  But we are pretty sure he wasn't an angel, because angels could probably understand our funny accents.  "I am sorry, your American accent is very difficult to understand.  Could you please speak with a British accent?"  We were making things difficult for him by saying things like, "thirdy four", instead of "thirtea four".

After we had sufficiently cooled ourselves in the lake, he asked, "What else can I do for you?"
We thanked him, and continued on our way to Almaty.

That has pretty much been the way of things with people in Kazakhstan.  Machines are a different story for another time.

Be well-
          Tyler and Adrianne