RIDING THE MOON

Dear friends:

I am again in Kazakhstan waiting for the ferry to Baku. Nobody knows when it could sails. If I have to wait for a long, I will camp on the Caspian beach because hotels are not cheap here. Finally, I rode alone from Kungrad to Aktau, 800 km of a real desert between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. It took me just two days to ride it. No towns, nor fill stations. Nothing but dust. The road was really terrible: gravel, stones, sand, bumps… Back to the Moon. The Chinese bikes could not ride it. They will be destroyed, so I took petrol, left them behind and went forward having a lot of fun. I enjoy riding the worst roads. It is something special when you feel the only guy on Earth in the middle of nowhere.

But this is not the end of Silkside Story. Sam and Silvan have put the bikes in a train to arrive Aktau. Our trips are very different and each one of us has to do his own adventure. Hope to see them tomorrow, when the train arrives here. The city is Ok, restaurants, bar, people, beach and sun. We can have some fun trying local vodka and leaving the bikes having a rest. They really deserve it. My little fat will need new rear shock after this trip (she is craving for Ohlins) and a very good and deep bath. I will give her everything she needs in Instambul, where I hope be arriving by the end of july.

Keep safe.

SAMARKAND

Dear friends:


I am in Bukharat, Uzbekistan. A very old and beautiful Muslim town. A lot of things happened in the last few days. First at all, I recovered my faith in God. Not as deep and suddenly as happened to Saint Paulus when he saw the light and fall down from his horse while trying to kill Christians, but in some way I could say I started to believe after 60.000 km around the World feeling I was being too lucky to be just by chance. But this is a very intimate experience and I am not going to tire you telling it. Just what I am gonna say is I visited the Catholic Cathedral in Tashkent (a good example of courage under soviet dictatorship) and my bike and me got blessed by the bishop. It is not a bad excuse riding 12.000 km from Spain just to get blessed in Central Asia.

Reaching Sarmakand was the point. After stopped five times in every check point by curious policemen, finally we could do the 300 km from Tashkent to Samarkand. When I saw the city lights in the late evening, I felt my trip had a real sense. I did not know it in advance but I had to go there and visit the 2500 years old Registan in front of the big Mosque. The Mosque is great as our beautiful Alhambra, but without the herds of turists walking around. Uzbekistan is an Islamic country but is not like others as Morocco, where you can not be alone just five minutes. In Samarkand I could seat by myself in the trees shadow and just seeing the old religious buildings and hearing the font music. I searched the ghost of the Spanish ambassador who came here in the Fifteenth Century. Then a non official guide approached to me. I asked him and he knew. He took me to a very small street named Ruiz Gonsalez de Klavixo. Ok, I got it. I am coming back home following more or less his way.

Bukharat. I think is even better than Samarkand. Smaller, with less grandiosity buildings, but here the mosques and mausoleums are located in the heart of the old town and the real people live among them. It is not decorate, is still real after 2500 years. It is a great experience riding the bike in very narrow streets trying to find a place to sleep. The sky is deep blue and the solitude is perfect. After the big hardness of Kazakhstan, this part of the trip is being so comfortable. Cheap hotels but friendly owners. Simple food but cold beer. Ok, it is easy to get fat here. I have to go. The Aral Desert is waiting again. I have to go back Kazakhstan and the way is horrible. No towns and no fill stations in more than 500 km. Just sand, tons of sand. Then the Caspian Sea, but the ferry has not fixed schedule so I could be waiting in Aktau for a long time. I will tell you anyway.

Keep safe

UZBEKISTAN

Dear friends.

I could find new shoes for my Little Fat in Almaty. She is happy now with new oil, new oil filter and new air filter. I changed all by my own with a lot of tenderness. Then we left the ugly city. I got Uzbekistan and earnt an hour. I lost four going East. Now I am recovering them heading West. The border was hard to cross because is in the Afghan and Pakistan heroin way to Europe. It means the soldiers took away my luggage and checked it really deep seeking for drugs. Fortunately for my dignity, rubber gloves are expensive and they did not check even deeper. But Uzbeks are really friendly. Their way of wave me is by approaching the car to my bike and then, when they are really close, horn and shout as loud as they can while the driver smiles and show me both thumbs up. They are going to kill me of friendship.

Policemen are very friendly too. They are everywhere in Tashkent, the capital. Wages should be very cheap, because in Uzbekistan are millions of policemen. Or they have a really huge budget for security, or they earn a shit. Probably, both are right. They stop me every time and every street and every corner just to ask how many centimetres cubic, if it has carburator or injection, and “skolka” and “kuda”. (How much it cost and from where I am). But one said the most stupid thing I ever heard: motorcycles are not allowed in Tashkent. Bullshit, I thought he was trying to bribe me. But not at all, it was real. Read this

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav051605a.shtml

Basically says that motorcycles are banned in Tashkent because the president is afraid of assassination using a bike. Do you understand now what I meant when I told you about Central Asia Surrealism?

Keep safe and well. Life is too short to be angry.