By half past seven in the morning, that huge yellow circle that humans adore was already beating down hard, so Daddy Edu had to move the campervan a few metres to find the blessed shade of the trees so we wouldn't end up like three sausages on a barbecue. By the time they woke up, organised the gear in the campervan and got moving, it was already nine o'clock; a pace that, frankly, drives me to distraction because by that time my hunting instinct is at one hundred per cent. We made the obligatory stops to stock up and fill the water tanks, and then went to sniff out what was cooking in Semey. The verdict from my snout is that there isn't much to the city, but we drove to a recreational island full of restaurants and noise to see the "Stronger than Death" monument. What a history they have here: Semipalatinsk (as it was called before) was the main nuclear testing ground for the Soviet Union, and the monument pays homage to the victims of the hundreds of atomic tests that ravaged this land for decades. To make matters worse, the whole park was turned upside down for repair work, surrounded by metal fences. But, of course, my humans saw this as a formal invitation; we slipped nimbly through the gaps, I marked a couple of corners to leave a record of my visit, Daddy Edu and Uncle Joan took photos in a hurry and, just as the workmen started shouting at us politely but insistently to get out, we retreated to the car with our dignity intact.

We headed north-east, already catching the scent of the nearby border with Russia, which we wouldn't be crossing today. The search for a five-star hotel for the campervan was an odyssey: first, we tried to camp by a lake near Znamenka, but that was the world congress of mosquitoes and, although I have a thick coat, I’m not about to donate my blood to those bloodsuckers; then the open steppe seemed like an unbearable drying rack without a single patch of shade, so we ended up pulling into Aul, the last Kazakh outpost before customs. We parked the car in a vacant lot with trees in the middle of the village around six o'clock and got out to stretch our legs. The place is about as rustic and authentic as anywhere I’ve set foot; pure rural essence. We were in the middle of this when Uncle Joan, who can’t see a bench full of people without stopping for a gossip, started chatting with some women sitting in the shade. The language was a stone wall between Kazakh and Russian, but with gestures and smiles, we explained that we were from Spain. Suddenly, a rather burly local from across the street shouted something at the women that sounded like a holy command; Daddy Edu, who has a sharp ear for anything culinary, only caught the word "chay". And from there, straight to heaven... at least for them.

They invited us into their house, although, with all the injustice in the world, I had to stay tied to a railing in the backyard, acting as a guard dog while the others tucked in—or rather, kicked off their shoes. What happened inside those walls was a festival: the lady of the house, a seventy-year-old woman who moved with the agility of a teenager, started bringing out food along with another, younger woman. They put bread, jams, honey, tea, fresh fruit, butter, and that wonderful sour cream called smetana on the table, and topped off the feast with some spectacular manti, which are a kind of steamed dough parcel filled with tvorog (a type of cottage cheese), all handmade and dripping with juices. After a while, another woman joined, and finally, the burly man who had suggested the tea. From the patio, I barked with indignation, complaining solemnly about such olfactory discrimination, because the aroma coming from that kitchen was pure torture for a terrier with a keen palate. Meanwhile, my humans used Google Translate to communicate and were sweating buckets trying to convince the tireless grandmother that they couldn't fit another thing into their bellies, something Kazakh hospitality rarely accepts at the first time of asking.

After showing them their humble but spotless home, the generosity exploded in the patio during the farewell photos. They gave us two "tubeteikas", the typical embroidered velvet Kazakh hats, for Edu and Joan, and for Joan's mother, they produced, out of thin air, a luxurious Chanel bag containing a scarf of the same brand. In the middle of a remote village in Kazakhstan! This incredible custom of opening doors to complete strangers and showering them with gifts is the purest reflection of the nomadic tradition of the steppe, where welcoming a traveller is a sacred duty and a point of pride.

We returned to the campervan floating with gratitude and with our bellies so full that my humans decided to skip dinner. I, of course, did eat my kibble under the starry sky, thinking that, even though they left me out of the banquet, these humans of mine have a level of luck that even they can't believe.