Thursday August 19th 2010

Hello friends and family we have made it to Baurnal Russia and are posting the last and final update before we reach our final destination in Ulaanbaatar Mongolia. We will be going silent until then due to lack of resources. So until the 28th of August the suspense is on... 

We have driven over 8500 miles and the Ford Ka is still functioning. The last few days in Kazakhstan have consisted of driving, driving, and more driving. Kazakhstan is an interesting place, the cities are more developed then I had envisioned and are followed by hundreds of miles of sparse fields of nothing! The drive from Almaty to Semey was pretty uneventful until the last 400 kilometers where the road was covered in 12 foot deep pot holes. We got 4 flat tires and it took us 9 hours to go such a short distance. That makes 7 flat tires for the entire trip! If there is an award for having the most flats in the ralley then I think we would win. We found a garage in Semy and with our sophisticated Russian, aired up the spares that could be saved after straightening the rims with a hammer and purchased one new spare to replace the rim that was unsalvagable.

 The Russian border was the easiet we have crossed since Georgia, we havn't seen so much structure in a while. We entered the border and ended up in a creepy small city last night where there were people lurking in the streets with huge bottles of alcohol everywhere. Some guy tried to convince us he was a "special police man" and wanted us to give him some money and our documents. He wasnt that convincing because he wearing flip flops, shorts, and a tee shirt. We refused to give him documents and he got aggressive so we fled the scene and found refuge in a hotel. 

The day time in Russia is a lot less sketchy and we have had a lovely day in Baurnal walking the streets. We hope to enter the Mongolia border tommorrow. Thanks for all of your comments and support!