June 3rd: Shymkent to Kyzl-Orda

It was a damp morning leaving Shymkent for the sporting section. We took a long winding desert road with lots of camels and potholes to the track. The marshalls warned us about the camel spiders that were roaming around, some of them as big as your palm. We took off on the sporting section and the road immediately degraded into deep ruts and invisible gulleys. At a certain point down the road, with Charlie and Steve in their Volvo behind us, we hit a bump with our rear wheels that sent the boot of the car soaring. Steve told us this evening he could see the whole underside, muffler and all. Our modesty was destroyed but mechanically we survived the track. The later part of the day was a long journey over dual carriageways. Close to our final time check the road began to slope downwards past the horizon, swallowed by a sea of blue sky. It was a surreal area, completely featureless beyond the falling road with nothing visible on the edge, like it was the end of the earth.

The pictures can’t do this setting justice, and it’s difficult to get a sense of the angle of the slope in them but nevertheless we tried to capture it. In Kyzyl-Orda we had dinner with Marty, Frances, Marco and Stephanie. They told us about the Sahara and Badawi rallies they were on and their history of rallying. It’s very nice to get a chance to sit down with people with whom you’ve exchanged hellos but never spoken to at length.