Helped out again
Sleeping in back of a truck tonight. How did I get there you might ask. Well let me explain. It had rained all night and I mean downpour. After breaky it had stop but I knew it would not be for long. Right I was, just outside of Aktobe it started raining again…
There was also an evil wind from the north making it again difficult just to stay on the road. By 1pm I was freezing and wet to the bone. I was following this truck - mid-sized Mecedes with German adds on it, but Kazakhstan license plate. You see a lot of cars & trucks with the german “D” sticker on it. I put on his hazard lights so I went past and the driver blew his horn. Thought OK friendly guy and sped on for 20 - 30 minutes before I stopped to warm up a bit and a smoke. So while I was standing in this bus shelter shivering. The same truck stopped and I went over to speak to the driver. He said / gesticulated I should put the bike in the back and ride in the warm cabin. I said getting the bike in the back would be difficult because its to heavy to lift. He said that there is a ramp a few kilometers on. In Kazakhstan the have these ramps on a lot of the rest areas on the side of the road. Basically two concrete ramps to drive your car onto to do work from underneath. So drove down the road and saw the truck backed up to the side of one of those ramps. I tried to drive up on side but with the wet and my fingers frozen stiff I stalled the bike half way up. Pretty tricky because one side of those ramps is just enough to get bike and one foot down. So tried again to get up and of course bike started tilting to the side where I could not get my foot down so dropped it. The left side Touratech case has a nice dent and is bent out of shape. With the help of Juergen the truck driver we managed to get the bike into the back of the truck.
Nice to be out of the rain. Juergen gave me his tracksuit bottoms so I could get my wet trousers off. We only stopped for 30 min for some food in a cafe. He was driving together with another truck which at first made me a little uncomfortable. What had I gotten myself into. But turned out to be OK. At around 8pm Juergen asked if I wanted to get off at one of those parking spots in the middle of nowhere, but I didn’t feel comfortable, because it was getting dark and I didn’t want to drive on in the dark. Drove on until 2am or so. I got into the back of the truck to sleep.
Day 35
20. May 2009
Start: Aktobe, Kazakhstan
End: just past Komotai, Kazakhstan
Miles today: 153
Miles total: 5061
Odometer: 11317
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