Thank goodness! By the morning, the mosquitoes from the marshy area must have grown tired of trying to get through the armour of our camper and cleared off, so we were finally able to poke our noses out and move around the car a bit without fear of being devoured. But the truce didn’t last long, because today we’ve had to swallow a massive stretch of road. And what a road it was... In some sections, it’s so utterly destroyed that the traffic was moving at a snail’s pace. The entire landscape surrounding us remained super marshy, an absolute paradise for flying insects but a headache for Papi Edu’s tyres.

We made a pit stop at a most curious intersection. There were no petrol stations or shops, but it was full of parked cars whose owners were hopping out to cast their lines and fish in the water channels surrounding the route. Now that’s what I call optimising a trip!

A little further on, we passed through a small town called Saumalkol. The place has an entirely industrial and mining feel that’s quite imposing, but what really left us wide-eyed (and me with my ears pricked in intrigue) was the number of blocks of flats in pure Soviet style that are completely abandoned. Huge, grey, empty buildings that look like the set of a ghost movie. It was a bit creepy seeing them standing there in the middle of the steppe, like silent witnesses to the past.

After the apocalyptic atmosphere, it was time to find a nest to spend the night. Papi Edu started snooping around the satellite view on Google Maps and spotted a promising blue dot: the shore of Lake Baysary. To get there, we had to leave the tarmac and drive over a kilometre cross-country, dodging weeds and potholes, but the effort was worth it. The place is super beautiful, a sight for sore eyes... although, to keep up with tradition, there is a population of mosquitoes here too that has come to welcome us.

We are completely alone in this paradise, with the sole exception of two men who drove past on their way back towards the road. Upon seeing us, they braked sharply to have a bit of a nosey. They turned out to be very friendly and, to Papi Edu’s surprise, they spoke a bit of English! We had the usual small talk that my human likes so much: where we’re from, where we’re heading, what we’re doing in the middle of Kazakhstan with such a truck... The usual stuff. After the pleasant chat, they went on their way and left us with our lake, ready to have dinner, protect ourselves from the winged vampires, and sleep like logs.