As if 36 hours of ridiculousness wasn’t enough, we found ourselves waking up on Friday, August 16 after four hours of half-sleep in a broken car with no money and little idea as to our location (other than that we were somewhere just north of Almaty).  Things were looking up though.  Ian’s phone had magically found a signal, we located an ATM in the now-open store across the street and Jon Hay had indeed settled at a fairly major intersection (there were people everywhere and a serious traffic jam in the road ahead).  In the daylight we were able to locate a few signs and discern what we thought might be the cross streets of our intersection (streets are not at all labeled as they are in the US…and of course all the signs are in cyrillic).  Ian then called and coordinated a tow to the Nissan dealership, a hotel reservation and transportation between the two.  We waited a half an hour and this time when the “tow truck” arrived it was actually a tow truck!  They got Jon Hay up on the flatbed with grace and ease relative to the previous day’s experience (it’s amazing how easy it can be when a truck is actually designed to serve this purpose) and we made our way to the dealership.

Jon Hay getting strapped in

We arrived at Nissan Astana-Motors and when it became clear that we only spoke English, similar to our experiences at border crossings, they called for a nice young woman named Alta to come and help us.  We explained our issue with the oil pan, our mission to get to Mongolia and our desire to get back on the road as quickly as possible.  They hoisted Jon Hay up in the air, had a look at her underside and said that they could not only have our oil pan fixed by the next day, but that they would also replace some worn out parts related to our alignment that would very likely create issues for us in Mongolia.  We thanked them for their help and caught a cab to our hotel.  After such an ordeal, it was nice to finally relax.  We found the hotel’s beer garden and enjoyed some sun and refreshing beverages.

Around 4 PM Ian received a note from Alta informing us that they’d already fixed the oil pan and alignment!  We were exhausted, already had the hotel room and, as you might be able to tell from the picture above, weren’t exactly ready to pick up the car so we told her we’d come by in the morning.  At about 5 PM we turned in for a nap and ended up sleeping straight through the night!  Four hours of sleep in a car one night and 16 hours of sleep in a comfy bed the next…averages out nicely.  Unfortunately, when we awoke on Saturday, August 17 we found a note from Alta saying that despite the fixed oil pan and new oil, our engine was still knocking and that they would need to explore further.  Ultimately it was determined that, while they were willing to work through the weekend to help us, they needed new parts and the supplier was not open until Monday.  Jon Hay would not be ready until Tuesday, August 20 at the earliest.  What seemed like a simple 3-day delay was actually MUCH MUCH more.  If you stay in Kazakhstan for more than five days, you need to register and get a stamp.  We would now be there at least six days.  The last time we passed through Kazakhstan it had taken us nearly a full day to acquire a stamp, but we found that they took care of things like this at the front desk of our hotel.  Problem #1:  solved.  The much bigger issue was that our Russian visa expired on Wednesday, August 21.  We had at least a 14-hour drive from Almaty to the Russian border and then another 1,000 kilometers to the Mongolian border.  Assuming the car was ready at the earliest possible time, we’d then have to drive straight to the Russian border, spend the night and cross first thing in the morning (which presumably would take a few hours) and then drive all the way to the Mongolian border and arrive before it closed at 6 PM.  This assumed good roads (which they assuredly would not be) and that our car didn’t encounter any other issues (which has proven an unlikely hypothetical).  It was an entirely unrealistic scenario (and not really the way we wanted to pass through the two countries).  We needed new Russian visas.  Monday we would need to drop our passports off at the front desk of our hotel, get them stamped and then take them to the Russian consulate to see about getting a new visa.  In the meantime, we hung out with Jason Siler, whom Ian knew from his time back in Washington and who was now a captain in the US army and in Almaty for business.  Jason showed us around town a little, including a walk through Panfilov Park with its WWI/WWII monument and very colorful Zenkov Cathedral.  We also met up with the Swiss who had successfully repaired their car in Osh and made the trip to Almaty.  We went out for lunch with the Swiss on Sunday and then all returned to the hotel beer garden for dinner and drinks.  We even invited Alta to join us and she did!  We told her about our visa issues if the car weren’t ready on Monday and she said she would see what she could do.  The Swiss had intended to hit the road that evening, but we convinced them to stay and they actually set up camp in our hotel room.

The next morning, after bidding farewell to our Swiss friends, we received a note from Alta.  She regretfully informed us that not only was there no shot of the car being ready on Monday, it probably wouldn’t be ready until Thursday at the earliest.  However, she had done some research on the Russian consulate on our behalf and discovered that they only handle visa issues for two three-hour periods a week:  on Tuesdays and Fridays from 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM.  It was a good thing because when we dropped our passports off at the front desk on Monday we discovered that it would take the better part of the day for them to go out and get the requisite stamps.  We got our passports back just before 5 PM and quickly made our way to the Russian consulate.  It was indeed closed, but we figured out where we needed to go the next morning.  That evening was an interesting one.  A Kazakh girl who translated for the US Army had told Jason she was interested in finance and more specifically in hedge funds, so he put her in touch with Ian and we agreed to meet her.  She came by the hotel and we again met in the beer garden.  What happened from there will go down as one of the weirdest, most uncomfortable interactions of my life…and she wasn’t even talking to me most of the time!  She proceeded to spend the next three hours asking nondescript questions like “tell me about hedge funds” and then would berate Ian for not giving her the information she wanted.  Her ultimate conclusion was that Ian didn’t actually work for a hedge fund and that we had just brought her there for our own amusement.  Through it all, however, despite her proclaiming it to be a huge waste of her time, she refused to let us part ways.  We kept saying we were tired and not feeling well (both of which were actually true), but she insisted on ordering another round.  There were so many more strange things about the evening, but you get the point.  Having stayed up much later than expected, we weren’t exactly punctual with our arrival at the consulate the next day.  We arrived close to 11 AM and gained access to the building with much less difficulty than anticipated.  However, once we got to the front of the visa line, we peered through the window and no one was there.  And this remained the case for nearly 45 minutes.  When the man finally returned, we explained our situation and he asked us for our application form, which of course we did not have.  The man wrote down a website and sent us on our way.  Apparently you have to fill out the application online, they do not accept hand-written forms.  Almost an hour at the consulate to have a 2-minute conversation and be dismissed.  Awesome.  So now, instead of starting the process on Tuesday and getting our visa on Friday, we would have to start the process on Friday and get our visa the following Tuesday.  The weeklong delay in Almaty just turned into a week and a half.  It would be way too expensive to continue to stay in our hotel, so we went back, checked out and relocated to an apartment on the other side of town which cost as much for a full week as it did for one night in our hotel.  The tall, Russian-era building left a lot to be desired externally.  The architecture was ugly, the paint job was old, there was trashed piled high near the front door, the lighting was poor/non-existent and the elevator…oh, the elevator!  Inside our twelfth-floor apartment, however, everything was great.  The furniture and appliances were new and clean and the view of the city with the mountains in the background was pretty fantastic.  We were also now much closer to the action in the city.  All in all a good move.

The view from our apartment

We spent the next three days touring the city and the nights hanging out with Alta and her friends Dana and Alyssa.

Alta and Matt

Ian, Matt and Alyssa

More nonsense…with a sword!

We also met a fun girl named Laila who was home on break from school in Hong Kong.

Drinks with Laila

We returned to the Russian consulate on Friday morning armed with completed applications, passport photos and printouts of our official invitations to Russia (which we discovered were also necessary thanks to the help from our friend Julia at The Visa Machine who had helped us with all of our original visas and whom we’d met at the UK launch party).  This time when we showed up to the window the man was there.  We handed him everything and were told we were making good progress, but we needed the originals of the invitations and also needed our car registration and proof of insurance.  Awesome.  Where was this info last time?  Tack three more days on our stay in Almaty…it would now be two full weeks before we could get back on the road.  We immediately went about tracking down the original copies of our invitations and were able to coordinate to have them in the mail that afternoon with an arrival time at DHL (which was conveniently across the street from the Russian embassy) of Tuesday morning between 9 AM and noon.  It was certainly cutting it close, but it should do.  In other good news, Jon Hay was finally healthy and Alta picked us up and took us to the dealership to retrieve our mended steed.  That weekend we rode the gondola with Laila up to Kok-tobe, an interesting vantage point well above the city.  In addition to the views, Kok-tobe features almost a carnival-like atmosphere with game booths, lots of little-kid rides and even a small zoo featuring unique animals such as the dolan.

“The most expensive breed of sheep in the world”

On Tuesday we got up early and drove down to the DHL office and, in an almost entirely unfamiliar situation, everything had worked as planned and the necessary documents were there.  We headed across the street to the consulate only to discover that we’d forgotten our insurance in the car.  Matt ran back and grabbed it…only to discover upon his return to the consulate that the car registration was also still in the car.  Another trip back and forth from the car and we finally had everything we needed.  Low and behold, armed with all the proper documentation, the process was fairly smooth and painless!  Expensive, but otherwise painless.  Third try’s a charm, our visas were finally being processed!  That night we went to trivia at Mad Murphy’s with Laila (hosted by her brother, Aldiyar), which was actually where we’d originally met her exactly a week earlier.  Laila certainly carried the team, but, thanks to her translations, Ian and Matt chipped in as well and the team took second place earning us a round of free beers!  Alta and Dana joined us right after trivia ended and the five of us chatted into the night.  I’d like to say that it was just a normal night, but Alta was heading out of town the next day so we made it special by donning string cheese mustaches.

Alta, Matt and Ian with your standard string cheese mustaches

 Alta then showed us to the best place in town for doner kebabs, a Kazakhstan staple consisting of shaved meat, fried potato, onions, cucumber and catsup all wrapped in a tortilla.  It was a delicious and fun way to end our time together in Almaty.  The next night was Laila’s last in Almaty before heading back to Hong Kong, so we joined her brother and her at a place called Shakespeare.  We’d been there the previous (Track-Suit) Thursday and met the owner and lots of the staff, so we felt almost at home.  Matt crushed Ian at darts before being similarly humbled by the owner himself.  Aldiyar gave us a ride home and we bid farewell to the last of our friends in Almaty.  Thursday, August 29 marked (hopefully) our last day in Almaty, but with all of our friends already out of town, we decided to lay low and just relax around the apartment.  The challenges of the road were set to resume the next day!

A quick recap to this point:

At 7 PM of an otherwise normal day (because driving across Kyrgyzstan is SO normal) we had just passed Lake Issyk-Kul and had decided to make our way for the Kazakhstan border.  We then entered the twilight zone.  A car tried to run us off the road three times, a kid on a bike blindly U-turned into our oncoming car, we hit some terrible roads, ended up driving through giant water-filled potholes on a service road through dense foliage (and some sort of military base with giant helicopters) following the Kyrgyz/Kazakh border towards China, backtracked for an hour, stumbled across the closed border at 10 PM, and camped in the freezing cold to be the first across in the morning.  We were ready to go right when the border opened at 8:30 AM, but were stalled when we couldn’t find our vehicle registration which had wedged itself in the top of our glove compartment.  We were further stalled by not having entry stamps into the country and ended up waiting 4.5 hours for the “big boss” to show up to take all of Ian’s dollars and tenge in exchange for letting us through.  In all, the process took just under seven hours, but we finally made it into Kazakhstan just after 3 PM.  We were now faced with the decision as to whether to continue north and actually get some miles behind us for the day or detour west to Almaty (the last major city before our final destination) for water, gas, internet and maybe a shower and bed.

The discussion had barely begun when our attention was diverted towards a new, third light on Jon Hay’s dashboard.  In addition to the “check engine” and “parking brake” light, Jon was now sporting a nice new yellow “check oil” light.  Ian wondered whether or not we should press on until we reached a major road, but almost before he could get the sentence out the car started making a very concerning knocking noise.  We pulled over immediately and had a look under the hood.  We went to check the oil, pulled out the dip stick and a stream of smoke emanated from the engine.  Uh oh!  Sure enough, our oil, which had been fine a couple days earlier in Bishkek, was now entirely empty.  Luckily we had a reserve of oil in our trunk, so we poured some in and watched as it went straight through and dripped out the bottom of the car.  Ian situated himself just far enough under the front of the car to see that our normally flat oil pan was now more of a tent shape with a giant hole in the middle from which oil was making its steady escape.  We’d hit many rocks and potholes on the dark service road the previous night and one must have done some serious damage.  There hadn’t been any noticeable issues at the time, but the oil must have drained out overnight and there was just enough oil still in the engine to get across the border without issue.  But driving without oil is a huge no-no, so we needed to fix this or we wouldn’t be able to proceed.  We let the rest of the oil run out, then pushed the car to a low area over a pothole so that we’d have more room to navigate under the car.  We wiped the oil pan as clean as possible, tore the cover off our Tajikistan book, placed it over the entire oil pan and used almost an entire roll of duct tape trying to create as tight of a seal as possible.  We poured a little more oil into the engine and within seconds it had seeped through the adhesive of the duct tape and was dripping out again.  We were less than two kilometers into Kazakhstan and at least 20 kilometers from the next town.  We would have been completely stuck had a man not stopped to help us right as we were watching our failed attempt at a temporary fix.  He and his wife and two kids were heading home to Almaty and offered to tow us to help in the nearest city.  The man pulled a tow rope out of his trunk (why didn’t we have one of those…and what would have happened had he not had one?) and secured it to the rear bumper of his Volkswagen before clipping it just under Jon Hay’s front end.  We made decent time towards Kegen, though our brakes didn’t really work with the car not powered on so we had to fairly deftly pull and release the parking brake in order to avoid rear-ending our kind friend whenever he slowed.  His kids, a boy of about four and a girl of about two, frequently waved at us through the back window and smiled ear-to-ear when we waved back.  We arrived in Kegen, a small city of maybe 10 blocks by 10 blocks, around 5 PM.  Nurlan, our Kazakh towing friend, pulled us literally all over the entirety of Kegen, from one “shop” to the next.  We call these shops, but there were rarely storefronts.  Nurlan would pull up to a plain white fence, whistle, someone would come out and Nurlan would communicate our problem with the person who was presumably some sort of mechanic.  Ultimately the answer was always the same, that they couldn’t fix Jon Hay and would direct us to a new location.  We must have stopped at least eight times before Nurlan finally decided to just detach us and drive around to find a place while we waited in our car.  Fortunately he wasn’t gone long and towed us around the corner to a similarly plain white gate where a man said he might be able to do something.  We removed the tow rope and turned on the car to pull it in the man’s gate and into his yard, but by the time we turned off the car again he was convinced he could no longer help.  The noise of the engine was not something he could fix…nor could anyone else in Kegen.  We needed to somehow get Jon Hay to Almaty, 250 kilometers away.  Some phone calls were made and Nurlan communicated that a tow truck was coming and that we’d be able to ride in the cabin with the man to Almaty where he’d drop us off at a mechanic.  It would be $250, but we shouldn’t pay until we were there.  By now it was after 6 PM and obviously still quite a long drive to Almaty, so we thanked Nurlan for his immense generosity and insisted that he get his family home; we would find a way to make it from here.  Nurlan was still somewhat reluctant to leave, but eventually gave us his contact information in case we had any further issues and went on his way.  We waited another 15 minutes before we heard a truck pulling up.  We walked out the gate and there was a giant semi!  What?!?!?  Where was the tow truck?  Devoid of other options, this would have to do.  But how were we going to get Jon Hay up into the container?  When Petr had towed us in the Czech Republic he had a flat bed that lowered to the ground and had a hook, wire and crank to pull Jon up.  This semi had none of those things.  Heck, there wasn’t even a ramp up to the container.  We pushed Jon Hay out from the yard and behind the truck and the man produced a frayed piece of rope that he tied between our two vehicles.  Without Nurlan, there was no way of communicating, but it seemed clear that Jon would not be going in the container.  Being towed uncomfortably close behind a huge semi by a frayed piece of rope (that certainly wouldn’t hold for 250 kilometers) was certainly not what we expected and was a significant downgrade from what we had with Nurlan pulling us around!  Regardless, this was now a reality and it was time to go so we went with it.  We drove about five blocks like this before we saw what looked like a legitimate tow truck.  The truck driver pulled off to the side of the road and detached us.  Relief set in, we were getting a legitimate tow after all!  Without any communication the truck driver got back in the cabin and drove off.  We looked to the tow truck driver, but he seemed to know nothing about what was going on with us.  We were just starting to worry when we realized that the driver of the semi was pulling his truck around below the drop of the embankment on which Jon Hay was parked and was backing up to the ledge.  This apparently was Kegen’s version of a loading dock.  He backed the truck all the way against the dirt embankment and opened the compartment.  We weren’t getting a legitimate tow, we were putting Jon Hay in the back of this semi.  Grand.  There was still a decently large gap between the dirt and the truck, so the driver produced two warped wooden planks (one about the width of a tire and the other very clearly not even that wide) and used those to bridge the gap.  Meanwhile, a random drunk Kazakh man stumbled upon the procession and, with a smile, tried to drag Matt off to a nearby bus stop for a discussion.  Matt politely freed himself and we continued at the task at hand.  The truck driver took point on directing as Ian, Matt, the tow truck driver and the random drunk Kazakh helped push Jon Hay over the precarious planks and into the bed of the truck.  There was no more securing of our precious cargo, just throw on the parking brake and hope for the best.  Ian, Matt and the truck driver all joined the truck driver’s son ( who was maybe eight years old) in the cabin of the truck and the four of us were about to head out when the drunk man pulled himself up into the open passenger doorway.  He clearly wanted some sort of compensation for his efforts, but as we did in all such cases, we pretended to not understand.  He made hand signals for booze and money before taking interest in Matt’s watch.  It was the second time in two weeks that someone had wanted the ten-pound duct-taped watch.

The object of much desire

The truck driver finally got fed up with the interaction, told the drunk Kazakh to get lost (presumably) and we were finally on our way as light was waning just before 7 PM.  We were on the road for less than 5 minutes before pulling into a gas station.  The man wrote down how much money he would want for the trip (which with the conversion rate was about $60 less than the $250 we had originally expected).  Nurlan had said not to pay until we arrived in Almaty, but the man clearly needed the money for gas, so we reluctantly paid.  After a decently long interaction with another trucker, our driver eventually got to filling the truck with gas.  It was 7:15 PM by the time we were fueled up and finally on the road.  Four or five hours on the road would get us into Almaty around midnight…ugh.  And yet, we were once again on the road for less than 5 minutes when he pulled over again!  This time he disappeared behind the truck.  What was he doing?  Was he rummaging though our car?  Where would he go with our stuff it he took it?  Ultimately, it sounded like he was actually just adjusting something on the truck and he was back in the cabin pretty quickly.  Back on the road, we almost made it out of the tiny city of Kegen when we stopped again!  Really?  This time he and his son both hopped out, crossed the street and disappeared behind a gate.  No attempted communication, just got up and left.  What was going on?  He already had our money, was he actually going to renege on taking us to Almaty?  If so, why would he leave us in the cabin with the keys in the ignition?  After 15-20 minutes, his son and another boy came out and were playing around the truck.  At one point they hopped up in the driver’s seat and continued to punch each other while the two of us sat there uncomfortably staring off into the distance.  This was all too weird.  Another man pulled up in front of the truck in what also appeared to be a more legitimate tow truck, but it was pretty evident that he was either a friend or a relative and not there to hep with our plight.  After about 45 minutes the truck driver finally reappeared (maybe he stopped for dinner?) and we were on the road, this time for real, at 8 PM.  His truck was in VERY bad shape.  The driver’s door would randomly come partially unlatched, the windshield was cracked and he had to forcefully push through lots of resistance and grinding noises to get into first gear.  But the worst of all for us was the uncomfortable seat.  We were on a cushion-less bench that was a little too deep and thus forced an awkward recline that left our backs and backsides very sore.  And yet this beat-up truck was better at getting Jon Hay to Almaty than any other present option so we persevered.  It was slower-going than we expected and we spent the next six hours on the road (most of which with the boy sleeping on Matt’s shoulder).  We kept it to three stops during this portion: one again to fix the truck, one for him to get a soda and a third when he realized his conversion error and demanded more money (we told him we’d pay him when we arrived).  It was 2 AM when we finally approached Almaty.  There were still many unanswered questions.  How were we going to get Jon Hay out of the truck and back to street level?  Was there going to be a mechanic waiting for us at 2 AM?  If not, was there a place for us to leave the car?  We drove through some back streets and finally came to a seemingly abandoned rail yard just north of the city.  Here we found the answer to our first question.  There was a cement platform that was perfectly the same height as the truck bed and on the other side of the platform was a dirt ramp down which Jon Hay could roll.  Getting Jon out of the truck was easier said than done, though.  During the trip Jon had clearly slid around and had lodged herself in one of the front corners of the truck, knocking out a headlight in the process (which made it even harder to see than it already was).  Matt contorted himself between the front of car and the truck wall (hands on the car, feet on the wall) and pushed while the trucker pulled a rope tied to Jon’s rear bumper.  Ian tried to navigate steering the car off two walls (a very challenging task in itself), but couldn’t help push with the driver’s door wedged up against the truck wall.  To add to the challenge, the truck itself was on a bit of an slope, so we were essentially trying to get Jon up a hill to get her out of the truck.  It took what seemed like an 11-point turn, pushing and pulling with all our might, to finally get Jon Hay on the platform.  We rolled her down the ramp and waited for the driver to pull around, tie up the tow rope and take us to a mechanic.  That, however, was clearly not in the cards.  The driver demanded his final payment and was clearly ready to leave us there at 2:30 AM in some abandoned rail yard down some back roads.  None of this transaction had actually been as we expected, but we had Jon Hay street level in Almaty and could figure it out from there, so we paid him and he left.  We watched the trucker pull away and started pushing Jon in that same direction.  We got about 50 meters before we came across some raised tracks.  It had been a long day with lots of pushing, especially recently, and we were unable to summon the energy to get Jon over the precipice.  Matt scouted ahead and the remaining roads out of the rail yard were fairly flat thereafter, so we fired up Jon’s engine for 2 seconds, got her up over the tracks, turned the car off and let her roll.  We pushed her somewhere between a half and full kilometer at a speed that actually had us jogging (to lose momentum would only make things tougher).  We were absolutely exhausted by the time we got to a fairly well-lit area seemingly just off a major street.  We pulled off to the side, pounded some water and tried to catch our breath.  It was 3 AM, we couldn’t find our exact location on a map, Ian’s phone wasn’t getting reception, we’d given the trucker all of our cash and the prospects of finding an open mechanic at this hour were basically non-existent.  There was little remaining value in trying to press on so we reclined our seats as much as our packed car would allow and tried to get a little sleep.  We would figure things out when we got up at 7 AM, exactly 36 ridiculous hours after a car first tried to run us off the road in Kyrgyzstan.