Hubbard Motorcycle Adventures

In the last post I said it was Almaty or bust. Well it was almost “ bust” but we have made it to Almaty  But let’s go back several days  to the Cosmonaut hotel in Karagandy. I mentioned in the last post that I thought it was only a tenuous connection with cosmonauts and astronauts themselves. I was wrong!  Outside the hotel was a grove of trees with each tree being planted by an astronaut or cosmonaut. As the Russians now take the Americans up to the ISS ( International Space Station ) there were some of the trees  planted by American  astronauts  . And with gender balance ( I think)  And the grove itself  In the hotel foyer there were some trainee cosmonauts I think. . Can you spot Diana?  And thus after a nice stay we head down to the town of Balkhash 400 km down the road. It was 370 km of roadworks on a hot dusty day. On the way we see a horse being butchered near the side of the road. There are two types of horses in Kazakhstan- eating ho...

We are getting close now and are on the final leg to Almaty.  But first it is time to say farewell to Pavlodar  as Diana has deemed  herself fit to travel albeit .....  Stop there, no further details offered!  Pavlodar was a nice city. When you are 5000 kmfrom the sea - you go to the beach  The tomb of the unknown warrior  War memorial park  And we find ourselves in the morning on a nice dual carriageway.  Flat, straight and boring - just what we want right now quite frankly. We see a sign to Sputnik. Given that Kazakhstan was the centre of the Soviet space program then possibly Sputnik was launched from round here somewhere.  That got me thinking. I remember in about 1956 as a young 10 year old going out into the paddock about 8 pm to watch the very first Sputnik  fly overhead. I think I saw it!  My father swore he did.  Of all of mankind’s greatest achievements then satellites into space must be truly one of the greates...

It was a day of two lots of “ 360”.  The first one was one of 360 degrees. We leave Rubtsovsk  bright  eyed and bushy tailed with the idea of an early border crossing just 20 km down the road. Good idea!  But!  Firstly the GPS seemed to be playing up and giving false signals. Something to do with the proximity of the border I rationalise.  Secondly I had a mindset problem in that I thought we just carried on the same road as yesterday to the border.  Not so!  We went round and round the town in ever diminishing circles. Then I used Maps.me to find the “correct” way.  Maps.me is now in deep disgrace!  We go for 70 km. “ No worry “ I said to myself, we are running parallel to the border. I still think we are near a crossing.  A sign says “ Border 20 km “. 40 km later we find out that means the  border is 20 km away- not the same thing apparently as a actual border crossing!  We stop at what I think now is a road to a border...

Let’s go back a bit for 6 days. To  the town of Ölgii in the furtherest  corner of Outer, Outer, Outer Mongolia. It is 6pm!  I have no idea what I am ordering for dinner. When it arrives I bite into a grey, boiled, lukewarm meat pattie of something or other !  Thus I believe it was there I received a farewell present from the great Ghengis  himself that surely more than rivalled anything that the great Montezuma could have given me as a farewell present or the city of Dehli could have given me.  I have been a sick, sick puppy! Fortunately the worst hit just after we arrived in the city of Barnaul where very fortunately we had booked a roomy suite in a comfortable hotel To make my misery  worse (on a lighter note - now!)  I remember that “cheerful” notice in the foyer of the hotel in the upper Altai warning of the bubonic plague in the area with horrible descriptions of the symptoms and an even worse prognosis for non revcovery ! Was that a marmot...