Day 30

Distance Covered: 193 miles

Total Distance Covered: 6090 miles

After a particularly chilly night in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan we set off toward Bishkek, I (joe) had woken up feeling atrocious with stomach pains and sickness feeling but after a few failed attempts to incur a TC we set off and a short while later was feeling right as reign. Descending toward Bishkek down an awesome pass we had to take a few breaks for photos and to let the very hot brakes cool a little. In Bishkek we recovered Jeremy’s belongings from a hostel where he had left them and had a quick lunch of ‘Manty’ in a Bazaar café before setting out for the Kazakh border where we bumped into another MR team. The Kazakh border was a chaotic crush of cars and people but eventually we made it to customs. After an epic battle to get our passports stamped and registered, the passengers of both teams (myself, Jeremy and Jamie) finally made it through and waited for Hugh and Dan to arrive with the vehicles.

Clearing the border we convoyed successfully toward Almaty until a high pitch squeal erupted from one of the front wheels, pulling over we discovered that we had destroyed a wheel bearing completely. With no idea what we were going to do, the other team left us (they had mechanical problems of their own which needed to be fixed in Almaty) and we just managed to get off the road before the wheel seized completely. After a quick assessment we also discovered that we were unable to remove the bearing due to lack of decent Allan-keys. With this in mind we made a risotto (standard procedure in the face of potential major problems) and discussed the situation over dinner. We finally decided that two of us should hitch in to Almaty in the morning to fetch help. We drew straws and I was left with van guarding duty for the day. Shit!