Category: offroading

Getting crazy about a road in Uzbekistan and, sight-seeing and awesome nature (June, July 2024)

From Kazakhstan we took the border crossing to Uzbekistan. The road after the crossing was the worst we’ve ever experienced. This photo shows the new road which was still in construction. But we illegally crossed from the old, broken road to this one because the old one was so crazy. Before we tried to go next to the broken road through the dirt and dust but that worked not as good as well.
On iOverlander there are reports of travelers going ten kilometers per hour on 250km of distance. We could go much faster but still it was crazy. I got really mad about this. And it’s weird: on an off-road track I don’t mind going slow, but on this road… The potholes were so deep, big and there were so many. And there were trucks. A lot. They had to go really slow, nearly stopping. If the locals go like that, you know about the conditions of a road. We’ve never seen so many cars broken at the side of the road.
At some point I started just acceleration and braking hard because I just wanted to pass this road.
Didn’t make sense but… fuck it!
But of course the locals knew how to pack their stuff.
We skipped the Aral Sea because we didn’t want to make the detour and went to visit an old sand stone fortress.
It looked interesting how the sand stone “melted” over the years.
Some proper sight-seeing in Buchara.
I liked these wooden pillars.
Buchara is a crazy tourist town.
Racki got a new haircut.
We met again friends we got to know before in Georgia and had a great time together.
Together we did some maintenance on their bikes and we crafted some custom made spare parts. On the road we learn a lot about repairing and crafting.
These little vans are the most common cars in Uzbekistan. They are like ants. Thousands and everywhere.
We found an amazing camp spot.
And parked as accurate as ever.
Met a lot of super friendly people.
Racki crafted jewelry and other stuff.
We had our signature meal: selfmade Pampe (kind of spread) with Lavash (thin bread/ wraps).
We went there primarily because we wanted to try the climbing crag there but the crag was just a small rock and the routes were nothing like the climbing routes I did before.
The stone was loose, the distances between the bolts were huge and the positioning of the bolts did mostly not make any sense for me. When falling these bolts would not really do there job.
I did not really enjoy climbing there. It was more a practicing rock for alpinism.
But the scenery!
It was super beautiful and we went for a nice hike/ mountaineering tour.
At one point we had to climb a few meters high, very steep slope (not on the photo). The rock was loose and sometimes crumpling under our hands an shoes. I was not used to this and did not feel so good about it.
Under the slope were a few rocks and then a hundreds of meters long steep snow and ice covered slope. A nice place to fall, roll and slide like shit… But despite my worries, we made it easily. Still it was kind of a near death experience for me. Racki did it in proper Racki-style and did not fear anything.
The view and the colors!
At the summit.
🥳
🐎 Here is this tour in Komoot.

Through Russia in the crazy hot steppe of Kazakhstan and someone got stuck (June 2024)

One of my favorite photos from Kazakhstan. But before:
From Georgia, we entered Russia with our transit visa we got in Armenia. The crossing went well, but very bureaucratic: the language barrier made the process of filling the customs papers for our car more difficult and so we needed three trials until everything was fine. Some travelers got pretty crazy in this process.
After the border we went to a rock climbing area right next to the main road. The approach to the climbing routes was crazy steep and the routes themselves were super difficult.
I was not very happy in that area because I did not feel very good about being in Russia.
We took the direct route to Kazakhstan and visited some Buddhist temples. But all of them were closed.
The military checkpoints in Russia were very friendly and we made a lot of jokes about mainly football and German beer. Only one Russian soldier was grumpy but not more than the ordinary Georgian 😁
But still I did not feel so good about being in Russia because of the relationship between the German  and Russian government and the war in Ukraine.
In the end it was like so often: regardless of the governments, the people are super friendly and helpful.
But I still thought that I would not like to meet a Russian soldier who’s friend or family member got killed in Ukraine and now had to deal with us,  German tourists.
This was a  floating bridge which was constantly pushed to the side by the river. On one end of it they installed a couple of outboard motors to keep it in place.
We crossed the border to Kazakhstan and entered the steppe!
The temperature rose to more than 40 degrees Celsius and sometimes we liked to continue driving just to have the comfort of Rosinante’s air conditioning.
Driving through the steppe was a crazy experience. Sometimes there was no turn, bend or corner for hundreds of kilometers.
Driving became pretty boring because the distances were huge. My favorite thing to watch were the camels.
One day we witnessed the funeral of my grandfather who had died in Germany when we were still in Armenia. Although participating online was better than not participating at all, it was weird.
After so much heat in the steppe we wanted to have a swim and went to Aktau, a coastal coty at the Caspian Sea.
There we went to an old amusement park and took a ride in a carousel. These carousels and attractions! I guess some would use them as a test of courage.
After having dinner we met a group of Kazakh celebrating a birthday and had a great time with them dancing to all kinds of music.
The stone formations in the Ustyurt National Preserve area were amazing!
They look like the back of Godzilla sleeping in the steppe.
There were some plants. But only very little ones.
And these rabbits.
Normally we do a lot of hiking, climbing and physical activities but in the heat of the steppe there was not much to do. So we decided to just take a walk around and run back.
While running, we scared a little gerbil-like animal which immediately run to a hole in the ground to take cover.
Unfortunately his ass was a bit to big and he got stuck in the hole 🥳
He tried hard to push himself in but did not succeed. He tried to go reverse but had no chance.
So we helped him a bit and gave him a push.
The vastness of our first offroad track in the steppe.
Sometimes it was like a video game in which you have to pick the best track.
A lot, lot, lot of dust! I loved it and it always reminds me on Mad Max.
Bit the dust could get pretty nasty on and inside of Rosinante.
The first version of our automatic washing machine.

We nearly killed Rosinante, about five times, sold Thor and bye bye Georgia (June 2024)

Back in Tbilisi.
Racki’s brother came visiting us from Germany. He’s a car mechanic and the first thing we did was changing the tyre of our Yandex after the car got a flat one.
I already had seen most of the attractions on Tbilisi but it was nice to show Racki’s brother around.
One of my favorites: the tiny clock.
And of course: THE MOTHER SHIP!
In one of the pubs there was a lot of wisdom to find on the toilet’s wall.
Back in Armenia we had waited for someone from Germany to get really interested in buying Thor but that did not happen.
Back in Tbilisi we made one last push and Racki messaged everybody who was into renting campers and caravans in Georgia. And it worked! We found a perfect buyer for Thor. He fell in love with him at first sight and found a way to import Thor to Georgia even though there were some regulations about importing cars older than ten years.
And so Thor became Georgian and although Racki’s heart was bleeding a bit, we were happy that Thor found a new and meaningful life in Georgia.
Some weeks later the new owner told us, that he already had managed to get everything repaired that was not working for about one thousand Euros. Even in Germany that had not been possible or would have cost several thousand Euros.
Did you recognize my awesome new summer hat?!
We met some of our best friends and went to the nicest restaurant in Tbilisi: Home Kitchen. It’s a super authentic, tiny and cheap place where you basically eat in the living room and kitchen of two real Georgian mums.
We had the biggest and most delicious Khachapuri. It was a super nice dinner and it was awesome to see our friends before we would leave Georgia.
After the city we took Racki’s brother on a nice hike in an area we have not been before and spent some time in nature showing him our nomad life. Waterfalls! Here is the hike on Komoot.
We met Marie who was traveling in a small camper van with her five dogs. Yes. FIVE dogs. They were a crazy gang. The smallest, a Chihuahua, was the leader. And Marie was such a nice mother to them and a very interesting and strong character. Together we had a great time with bonfires and so on.
For the way back to Tbilisi, we chose a small track over a smaller mountain and through nice forests. But this tour turned out to be crazy!
Driving a very steep and narrow hairpin curve, I did not recognize a deep trench on the right side of the track.
Rosinante’s right rear tyre fell completely in it still touching no ground, the whole car tilted to the right, the left front wheel got up in the air and the whole car was only held by the rear fender.
Racki and her brother got carefully out of the car and stood on the left rockslider to tilt Rosinante back to the left but it was not enough.
I felt not good about what might happen next.
We decided to attach the cable of the winch to a pretty small tree to stabilize Rosinante. But the tree was far from perfect because its lowest part was still higher than the track and Rosinante.
But it was our only change. Racki and her brother got back on the rockslider and I started winching from the driver’s seat.
First Rosinante started tilting even more and the front got up. Very scary. I guess there was a possibility that the whole car would just roll.
It didn’t. We managed to save Rosinante and we were very relieved.
After that we decided to go on and made it through some tricky parts over the highest point of the track. The next day we took Just a walk and then I wanted to continue because we did not know what this track would be like and there was a decent probability of rain.
Our next obstacle was a titled part. You can’t see it in the photo but it was really tilted and got even more tilted. I was not sure if Rosinante would flip and roll down the slope next to it and so we started leveling the track. Three hours! It was crazy but we made it through.
After some other tricky parts and a lot of scouting and trying and using our recovery boards we made it to a super muddy, slimy and slippery slope. There was no chance to get up without the winch and so we used three trees to winch us up and around a corner. When relocating the winch, Rosinante’s breaks were barely able to hold her on the slope and saving her from slipping down and so we had to be quick.
After the slope we had to winch Rosinante through a muddy forest because the track itself was completely washed out.
And after maybe rolling down a slope on a small graveyard we finally made it to a camp spot. We were exhausted and for me this off-road track was the craziest I ever did! The same for Racki and her brother.
Since then I’m really not looking forward to do off-roading like that.
And I’m still happy that all four of us survived!
Back in Tbilisi we said farewell to Cindy’s brother who had an adventurous time with us and was looking forward to relax a bit back in Germany.
Our tyres were pretty much done and so we swapped them.
After months of searching for new BFGoodrich AT2 tyres in Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, we decided to just go with Chinese tyres because in the end one BFGoodrich would have cost 700€. Five of the best looking and new Chinese tyres were 620€.
We have a long term review of these Roadcruza RA1100 AT tyres going on since then. And so far we are very happy with them.
And we got the best steering alignment ever! It’s weird but although there are a lot of people offering steering alignments and it’s quite a thing in these countries because of the potholes and road conditions, the results are often not very good. But this time a guy from Russia who worked for a racing team eid a great job!
On our way to Russia we made a stop in Arsha to climb again the magnificent climbing crag there. It was awesome!
Marie and her dog gang joined in and we met Silvi, Rick and another funny guy. Together we had a great time talking, climbing and hanging out.