KAZAKHSTAN

Dusk had settled over a drab terrain and nightfall brought with it a windy chill. We'd pulled off the road in a sweep of rolling hills, not a tree in sight, the greyish-brown grass crunched under our tires as we searched for a place to camp. We found some level ground tucked away from the road, and ate our measly dinner as we set up the tent. 

What is that? A silhouette topped the hill. Just one at first. And then more followed. At least twenty men, side by side, spread out in a staggered line across the ridge. We froze. Are they coming for us? Is this when we get in the car and drive like hell? It was like a scene from an old western film, when a menacing band of American Indians rises up over a hilltop above a convoy of innocent settlers. Or a zombie apocalypse, trapped in a deserted wasteland, besieged by a lifeless horde.

And then they stopped. And started urinating. Watering the hopelessly dead grass. Peeing in our general direction. It was nothing but an evening pitstop, the bus parked out of sight over the hill.

And that was the most excitement we had in Kazakhstan. 

Whereas Kyrgyzstan was a sensory overload, Kazakhstan was underwhelming. But we were OK with the lack of distractions. We’d been on the road for over a month, and were starting to feel the pressure of time. It was the middle of August, and our last semester of grad school was starting after Labor Day. We’d put a bookend to our journey and purchased our plane tickets home while we were in Bishkek, and our flights out of Ulaanbaatar gave us motivation to pick up the pace.

After that first night of camping, having barely escaped the piddling zombies, we put in a smooth twelve-hour day of driving. The roads were easy, the landscape was bland. I'm sure there’s a lot of beauty in Kazakhstan, but we seemed to bypass all of it. We camped by a river on our second night, and put ourselves within half a day of our second-to-last country, Russia.