Breakfast today was the best way - al fresco with coffee, eggs, bread and cheese. JC found some photographers to chat to - but turns out they weren't very chatty. [The yellow rectangle is a tourist thing for photo taking, we saw and ignored quite a few].
Then we walked with Nurland up one of the spines of Aktau range.
We gasped and gazed as we ascended and marvelled at the awesome geology opening up before us.
At the top we drank it all in, took lots of photos whilst Nurland sat on a rock and watched a film off his phone.
We were fascinated by the different types of quartzite up here. There were seams that broke as they surfaced but they splintered in different ways: some in larger crystals, some like matchsticks and some small, giving the impression of hashing paper.
Someone's leg.
I was also intrigued by the plants who appeared to be struggling against the arid sandy environment the whole time. Once through the crust some managed to keep going and grow leaves whilst others turned literally to dust. I think this is Nanophyton erinaceum which seems about right checking with Kew.
A photographer reluctantly walks off the range. As does his partner in crime.
We then drove to another key set of mountains, Katutau. Again, our guide cooked whilst we trekked.
To be honest, this wasn’t quite what we’d signed up to. We'd been expecting an English speaking driver and guide. His English wasn't great - as in he couldn't really talk much without his translation app (not too bad but no way we could chat when he was driving) and he didn't guide us much at all. He was far more happy driving/cooking and setting up camp for us (which was very welcome!) but not showing us where to go - except random pointing. We didn’t know which way to go and what to look for.
The few other tourists we saw drove up, took a photo of the main lava lump, maybe climbed a small hillock for a selfie, then departed. Admittedly it's a very nice lump, and quite Gaudi like, but why travel '000s of kilometres to do that?
Before lunch, for an hour, and after, for two hours, we explored. We found more lava lumps, red striated rock, lots of horse poo (sadly no horses), a long snake and a hare. For some reason I thought it important that JC hold this plant up.
This lava lump looked like a turtle approaching a beaver - in my head at least.
Lunch was delicious too by the way in case you were interested. It's a very Kazak 'thing' to have sweets on the table for each meal. Every homestay we stayed at did this.
Katutau was lovely but felt a little anticlimactic after Aktau which certainly upstaged it. We did like the weird offering-stand we saw by the road on our drive out (the stand is about 2 m high). However, both mountain ranges were certainly more awesome than the 700 year old willow tree we were driven to, which is also a key tourist attraction of the Atlyn Emel. Maybe an old willow tree isn’t really a big thing for a Brit.
We overnighted in a lodge in Basshi. Shower yay! Electricity yay! Proper toilet yay! No wifi. No worries.
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