This was supposed to be an easy ride today. 150km to Shepte to break up the almost 500km
to Beyneu. Starting from the hotel,
Scott drove his bike around the hotel’s roundabout, not realizing that the
bricks were as slick as ice. The bike
immediately was flattened and did spun around twice scratching up the side of
the bike. (Scott was not injured given
the super low speed).
Stocking up on supplies before leaving Aktau |
It was a good start of the day…We started driving
following HJs navigation. We saw
something that looked interesting (turned out to be a cemetery) so we turned in
to check it out. We were chased down by
two cars telling us to not go there that it was only a cemetery. We acted a bit dumb and then asked for
directions to Shepte. They told us to go
in the opposite direction, saying that the road was “kaput”.
Road kaput? We go anyway! |
We said thank you and they were on their way. We started up the bikes and headed to see the
“kaput” road. After about 20km, we
understood what they meant. There were
trails, not roads. Navigating was challenging
but with knowing the general direction, we managed.
This was not the worst, just a medium section |
We hit our first patches of sand here. On one of the sand patches, Scott was
following a bit too close, got caught on the sand dust with no visibility and
ended up falling. This fall had done
some damage to the left panier and broke the handguard. The handguard was easily fixed with duct tape
J. Unfortunately, this was not the only fall on
this road today…HJ also fell once in the sand, luckily not damaging
anything. He did managed to lose the
rear mud guard.
The guy eventually drew the map out on a piece of paper |
We arrived into Shepte, got petrol and asked for the
hotel. We were drawn a map and we headed
to find a place to rest.
The hotel was small and very much like a hostel. There were 6 beds in one room. There was a shower so we were happy. The bathroom was outside though.
The hostel, super discrete and you need to ask where it is! |
We met a very nice man from Baku, Etimar, who
ended up buying us dinner and breakfast – Thank you again.
Etimar, Scott, HJ: Thanks again for the dinner and breakfast! |
Tomorrow would take us another 370km to Beyneu
and on roads like we rode today!
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