Chimbulak and Almaty

Not much seems to go to plan in Central Asia. In my last post I mentioned that we were off to Almaty for a few days to get our Uzbek visas. Hours before boarding the train we decided to check one last time that the Embassy would definitely be open. Good thing we did as, despite what we had been told by numerous people, they were closed on Fridays. I was looking forward to spending my birthday snowboarding but as fate would have it I would instead be available for the CR working bee. Hurrah!

Actually it was good fun. Anyone who has been camping with me will know I love a good tree bend and smashing trees in general. It's not a anti-greeny thing, I love trees, it is just that there is something so satisfying about expressing human kinds' dominance over nature. The task for the day was to clear a part of the site that had at one time been a park but had degenerated (or more accurately regenerated) into a full blown forest. There are a few NGOs that use the site so we had plenty of workers, it was time to wind back the biological clock.

That took care of my birthday day but as for the night I thought it would be nice to go out to dinner with the CR crew. I asked a few people and they seemed reluctant but agreed to go out. I asked Arman and he asked what time?? I said 7ish. I cant be sure what he said as he doesn't speak much English but I did recognise the words Superstar KZ (aka Kazakhstan Idol). That's when the penny dropped. The begrudging responses were those of people giving up the highlight of the TV week. With a few quick adjustments plans changed and I hosted my very first Idol party. If you're keen to become an Idol of some sort I would suggest you try in Kaz, based on the people that got through I'm pretty sure even I would be in with a fair crack of taking out the whole thing.

With Idol out of the way we hit the town for dinner and dancing. Arman (being the expert on all things Kazakh) showed us a thing or two about how to pick up using different dance moves. As far as I can tell my best bet is doing the 80's shoulder shimmy thing whilst cornering my chosen target. I move closer and closer until she does the Banannaramma Venus hand wavey thing back at me at which point it's all over. I tried very hard but Nat was very good at the Bannanaramma hand wavey thing and in the end I gave up.

After a "relaxing" Sunday shopping in the Shymkent bazar we boarded the train to Almaty. We didn't book in time to get into the good carriage but the people at the back of the train were really nice so we were happy to save the $30. Unfortunately the beds in 3rd class are only about 5ft long which has my feet hanging over the edge by a good foot which made It very hard for people to pass without toughing my feet. It was also very unfortunate that the height of the bed plus the length of my feet placed my big toe at crotch height. Needless to say I was always grateful when passers by chose to give me a little backside rather than the front!

We went straight to the embassy to put in our applications only to be told to return at 2pm. Our friend JP who is a regular at the Uzbek embassy had warned us that if you turn up at the advertised opening time you're likely to be 30th in cue. He also warned us that the waiting room was open air and with the snow coming down we weren't too keen to wait outside too long. It leaves you with a tricky equation. We shot for 30 minutes early and ended up 7th in line. Not too bad. Shortly after 2 the guard informed us that unfortunately the visa processing gentleman decided to have an extra long lunch and there would be a delay, a delay that would leave us out in the -5 waiting room for an extra 75 minutes. The lunch was probably a good thing as the diplomat was in such a good mood after his lunch that our applications were processed on the spot (as opposed to two weeks) without the $50 US urgent fee much to the disgust of our friend JP who had made the 16 hour trip from Shymkent twice (once to lodge and once to collect) and still had to pay the urgent fee.

We were kind of hoping for a few days in Almaty to do a bit of sight seeing but with work to be done at CR HQ we decided to head home the following night. This gave us the afternoon to wander the streets and most of the next day to do something a bit more substantial. Seeing as I missed out on my birthday boarding it was decided that we would head to Chimbulak for the day. We got up the next day at 7ish got all rugged up and headed out into the still snowing Almaty morning. The traffic didn't seem to be moving too much but after a few minutes we managed to get a bus. 20 minutes and 100 meters later we decided walking might be faster. You would think that in a city used to snow they would be well equipped to deal with the 30cm fall. Cars' wheels were spinning out of control, police were trying to get to accidents, traffic was at a standstill, the city was pretty much in meltdown. It was a long cold walk across the city to the bus stop for the ski resort and by the time we got there it was already after 10. The meltdown had obviously affected this side of the city too. We waited for 20 minutes for a bus or a taxi and when the taxi arrived he asked for 2000 tenge ($20) as opposed to the 60 tenge (60c) it would cost us to catch the bus. I said no, Nat was happy to start with but was ruing the decision after another 5 minutes standing on the side of the road. I was confident we had made the right decision but when the next taxi pulled up I caved and got ready to be bent over. I say taxi but I need to clarify. Basically hitchhiking is more accurate. Anyone can take paying passengers for a negotiated price. Some people even splash out on a taxi sign. The second suitor was a little more gutsy, seeing the "Touriska" stuck in the snow he shot for 10000 tenge ($100) for the 10 minute trip. Fortunately the number 6 bus came as we were trying to talk him down and we got away with 60 tenge. the next stage of the journey requires you to get a 4WD taxi. We picked one up within minutes and it looked as if we were home and hosed until... 1km from the resort our trusty steed began to wheel spin and blow way too much black smoke. The hill was ridiculously steep and to be honest I'm surprised anyone makes it to the resort. We did get passed by a very ingenious VW driver who had converted his front wheel drive into a rear wheel drive simply by reversing up the 10km hill, fishtailing the whole way might I add. We bid farewell to our 4WD and walked the last kilometer. It appears we are unable to ski without a serious hike involved. I hope our luck changes before we reach the Andes! the morning had all but run out by the time we got Nat some skis and purchased out lift tickets but it looked like there was hardly anyone around and there certainly wasn't a queue for the lift so it looked like we were in for 4 hours of power.

I think at some stage the resort owners must have been given the choice, do you want a high speed detachable quad chair to replace the crappy double you're currently using as your arterial lift OR would you like to blow a whole lot of cash on a flashy electronic ticket scanning system. They chose poorly. We scanned our tickets in the flashy turnstile and prepared to get whacked in the legs by the nondetachable double chair. There were only a few people on the hill and the 30cm of fresh was still more or less untouched other than the central groomed run and even that had some sizable patches of untouched snow. After a few runs we realised they were about to open lift 2 which accesses the higher reaches of the resort. We managed to be the first up that chair and the run down was glorious. It's not a great hill but gliding through powder is pretty awesome no matter how short the run is or how steep the terrain is. We continued to hit the upper slopes for the rest of the arvo and had a great time. Had things gone to plan we would have been skiing on 3 week old snow with patches of grass popping through everywhere but as luck (or Divine intervention) would have it the delay in our trip delivered us the best conditions of the season thus far. nice.

This Friday we head to Uzbekistan for a few days. I promise in the next few weeks I will write a post on what CR does and how we fit into that.

Also a reminder that you can see more of our photos in our Album
http://www.travellerspoint.com/photos/gallery/users/Nat%20and%20Ev/

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"Once again, things that could've been brought to my attention YESTERDAY!"
Lot's of love,
Ev and Nat