In between all the things we did in Almaty, we went to Tamgaly Tas to climb there again. And this time I had my favorite birthday present with me: a custom handmade dino tail chalk bag!!! This thing is so awesome! Thanks, Racki!

The climbing felt great again. And it was interesting to climb on these rocks again. To me, it felt in a way easier and simpler than the climbing in Malaysia and Thailand. And the scenery was super nice. Especially the big birds of prey flying close to us while we were on the wall.

A lot of friends came to visit us in Tamgaly. It was very nice. For a couple of days, our friends, the Startroopies (Sarah and Wouter) joined us, and this time not only them, but Wouter’s father, sister, and brother as well.

His father celebrated his 65th birthday with us. It was very nice. And the Startroopies gifted us another special chalk bag: a yeti-style one!

And the same day, he tried sport climbing for the first time.

One day, our friends “The Gügels” visited us. Together we went for some climbing, and the boys tried to catch some fish. Together we figured out a very good option for me to get a new smartphone: asking the regular group of German expats if somebody would be flying soon from Germany to Almaty and could bring me one.

The dinosaur tail found a lot of friends, and one day, I lent it to a Kazakh climber who gifted me a dino shoe sticker for that. Dino fans!

Merel, Leon, Arni, and his dog Cleo joined us as well, and we climbed a whole lot!

Everybody had a good time, and it was so nice to see everybody continuing the climbing experience. Arni especially got really into it after trying sport climbing for the first time with us. After his first day, he immediately got climbing shoes and a whole lot of equipment. And thanks to Arni’s Starlink, which he lent us, Racki and I were able to stay for three weeks in a row in Tamgaly.

Something was different in Tamgaly than last year: our stray dog gang was missing. But one day, all of a sudden, they were all back and as crazy and cute as ever. We think that some locals had taken care of them during the harsh winter and brought them back.

We had a look at a nice mountaineering competition of a mountaineering club from Almaty.

In between, I got a new guitar: Phoebe! Absolutely beautiful and super nice. I kept practicing almost every day.

And Racki and I decided to change our plans: instead of going west, we decided to pay the money and go east: Russia, Mongolia, China, Laos, Cambodia, Laos, China, Kazakhstan. We were very excited about it and especially curious about climbing in China!

Together with the Startroopies, Merel, and Leon, we had a fantastic karaoke night! It was hilarious: riverside motherfucker!

And we had some minor sandstorms! Interesting to have about 15% humidity again after 90% in Southeast Asia.

One day when I was belaying Racki, I had a look around and discovered that some Kazakhs had somehow managed to drive their pretty small car pretty deep into the river. Even for the Kazakh level of driving and treating cars, this was a new level for us. There was nothing we could do about that because driving there, to the other shore of the river, would take us hours.

They didn’t seem to be happy about the car in the river. At some point, they started fighting, and when one guy was punching the other several times in the face and pushing his head under water several times, I didn’t feel so good anymore about this whole situation.

The river was wide and there was nothing we could do about it, but still it didn’t feel good. Luckily the guys stopped fighting soon, and the next morning, their car was out of the river again.

Racki and I climbed a lot of newly bolted routes and older routes we had never done before. I was especially happy with two more 7a routes which took me quite some time to figure out, but after solving the puzzle, they went very well. I loved the climbing life!

We made it back to Kazakhstan and of course our first stop was at Gleb’s place to meet our friend and reunite with Rosinante and our plants Georgia and Pizza. Especially Georgia grew a lot with the help of Gleb’s mother.

And for that, she had earned the colorful magnet we got for her in Malaysia, which fit very well into her collection, even more.

After that, we met Arni at his new, big, and nice home.

The house was very nice and some walls were made the Kazakh way: absolute perfection.

We lived in his big yard and started preparing Rosinante for continuing our car life.

First, we had Rosinante’s bushings in the lower suspension arms in the front changed again: cheap, crappy Kyrgyz bushings out, new expensive German bushings in. Because the bushings were pressed, we couldn’t do it on our own in a proper way.

Some teeth cleaning for us and for Racki hours of drilling: all new and shiny.

And we went collecting shirts that we had designed for our birthdays. Racki got “Climber’s Life” in the style of the Stranger Things logo and I got “From another point of view” inspired by the nice arts cafe which we had visited in Malaysia.

We went to the famous Atakent Mall parking lot where a lot of foreign campers meet during the season. But this time we were alone. At least until during the night a German couple (Kasia and Michael) crawled to the parking lot with their car, having serious problems with it. Kasia even had to push the car for the last few meters.

The next day, it turned out that they had crawled all the way back to Kazakhstan from China because nobody there could help them. We connected them with Arni, who had a quite similar car. It turned out that he could indeed help them a lot. Not fixing everything, but enabling them to drive properly again to start sorting out things.

And even more interesting for us, they told us that it was now possible to drive through China on your own, only doing the border crossings in a group. And even the price got a lot cheaper than what we had heard about.

Our idea at that point was going back west to Georgia or Turkey, but now a new seed had been planted.

My birthday with good friends at a nice pizza place and awesome presents.

As always in spring, there was Nauryz in Kazakhstan.

It was nice as always: people got active after the winter. A nice feeling of spring.

We met again with Maria, our good friend, and had a good time at the festival …

… and in the bars of Almaty.

At Arni’s place, we did a lot of stuff for Rosinante. And we had a lot of fun doing so because Arni had a lot of ideas and was always motivated to try new stuff. Combined with his 3D printer, we made a lot of things possible.

Fixing our light in Arni’s workshop.

Getting a present for fixes on the way.

After some days, Harry, a friend of Arni, came to visit him and he helped us as well. Here they are fixing the hinge of our cabin hatch.

Unfortunately, my phone had a severe accident and was almost completely unusable. So the search for a repair shop or a new phone started… Not easy because everything is cheaper in Germany …

Months ago, one of Rosinante’s rear shock absorbers had started leaking. These shock absorbers were special ones from a German manufacturer called Toyota Nestle, and when I emailed them, they told us that two new absorbers would be almost 1400 Euros! Plus shipping and customs to get them to Almaty, of course.

The previous owner had bought these absorbers and I was never really happy with them, so we finally decided in Malaysia to order new shock absorbers and leaf springs for Rosinante from an Ironman shop in Almaty. Even after all these months, the biggest available shock absorbers didn’t make their way to the shop, so we decided to take one size smaller.

We ordered some static lifts to Arni’s place and together we did a good job swapping the shock absorbers and leaf springs.

We installed an additional intake for our diesel heater and a switch so that we could switch between heating up the air from outside or inside or both.

We rearranged the button to switch the charging of our living battery with Rosinante’s alternator.

And Arni made us a very special and beautiful new emblem for Rosinante!

Lovely and unique. 3D scanned, modeled, and made with love.

One evening, we met Gleb, his girlfriend, and his mother together with Maria to thank them again for taking care of our cars when we weren’t in Kazakhstan.

Like every year, Racki and I attended the Wings for Life run. We decided to join a bigger event in a small stadium in Almaty because of the rain.

And again we were not alone: Arni, another traveler (not in the photo), and our friend Abubakar in Tajikistan (running in Tajikistan) joined us. Together we did our best! Racki and I did almost 12 km each.

At Arni’s place, we did several barbecues. Our good friends Merel and Leon came back to Almaty as well, and Kasia and Michael joined us too. Together we had a nice evening with Merel performing her new songs and everybody singing some karaoke.

Paola and Igel, whom we got to know last year in Almaty, visited Arni’s home as well. They had to sort out some topics with their unique camper truck called Big Blue and were funny and easygoing as always.

Another evening, we went to an electro music party. Normally, I like parties like this, but the circumstances were… odd. Racki, Merel, and Leon went for a short evening walk in the park at the Atakent Mall parking lot and I went into Rosinante to make some music. Just days ago, I had started to make music with my laptop (and Bitwig) again and really liked it a lot and was very happy to really take some time to get going and enjoy making music.

After a few minutes, Racki came into Rosinante with tickets for that electro party and I was quite irritated. But she was so happy to surprise me that I just had to go. So I went with them. But the timing was… unfortunate. Racki did not like that it took quite some time for me to get used to my new evening experience with hundreds of people at a concert instead of making music on my own and got irritated by that. So it was not the easiest party, but still I liked the surprise more and more as we did a lot of dancing.