Yuri Gagarin on the silk road

Kazakhstan. Last country before home. After a week in Almaty we begin the longest hitchhiking neither of us have ever done. More than 1200 km to cross the country from the very south of the ancient capital until Astana.

Almaty was normal. That's the best word to describe it. The other would be boring. Nothing really fascinating about this big modern city. It could be anywhere in Europe. To save it a bit, I could add that if it's not so interesting to visit, it must be pleasant to live in. The city is clean, green, young, active, and the level of life in this place reaches much higher than many place of Central Asia. But soon we left it to hit the road one last time.

When we imagined hitchhiking those almost 1300 km, we wondered a lot how we would make it. It went actually easier than we thought! Soon after starting, a young and friendly man took us for free until Balkhash, roughly half way between Almaty and Astana and near the lake of the same name. Actually he would have taken us until Astana, but we wanted to make a stop, and enjoy the road, rather than to drive it at once.

And what a road! Most of the road from Almaty to Balkhash is a desert. Wide and plain. In all four horizons one can see kilometers of nothing. Not a man, not a house, not a tree. Sometimes a rare eagle spread its fast shadow on the dry ground. Only once, on the side of the road, four poor houses offer tea to the cars that stop. ''There's no network here'' says a woman who must have endured the hottest summers and the coldest winters. Behind the small sheds and wagons, altogether four of them, four toilet houses are standing lonely in the middle of the windy fields. I am thinking about the president's determination to make Kazakhstan enter the top 30 highest developed countries of the world before 2050.

Balkhash lake is the largest of Central Asia since the Aral sea is shrinking. It spreads in a long snakelike shape and has also the peculiarity to be half of fresh water (in the west) and half of saline water (in the east). Closer we get to the lake, the more people we see. The more camels too, carrying their furry two-humped backs in the dry land. And the more policemen, who are really everywhere in Kazakhstan. Nothing really grows here. Except marijuana. Long time ago, when no one knew such Kazakhstan, Chu valley was already known in Russia for that reason, tell our driver. This might be one more reason for policemen to stand here.

Arriving in the city of Balkhash we soon get caught by a half crazy woman called Lastochka who still shows helpful as she finds us a cheap place where to stay a couple of nights. We rented a flat from two overdressed young ladies with heavy make up. Do not drink in the streets, come to drink in the flat, one of them warns us while closing the hole in the window with a tape. We spent so two nights in this place, and one incredibly hot day (around 35°). We looked for freshness near the lake where I had a swim in sensibly cooler water (probably between 15 and 20°).

The next day we were back in the outskirts of Balkhash, thumbs up. We didn't wait long for a car to pick us up. It was a van full of dry fishes smelling mouthwatering and strong. We travelled the remaining 600 km to Astana, the new capital of Kazakhstan.