Our days seem to be dominated by the search for the essentials of our humble existence - water, food and fuel, and the ATM to allow us to pay for them.
One or other seems to be a problem on a particular day, but today was the first day that fuel was the dominate issue. Having driven through the pretence of a road for 6 hours yesterday, and a further hour this morning, we expected to find fuel at Aral, but all 4 stations were out of any petrol above 80 octane.
In the end, we had driven 650km between fuel stations. Our thanks to the designer of the Jerry can.
Our ATM search was eased by our kindness in picking up a local guy who was hitching a ride from his house about 80km from Aral into town. This is very common here (we had accidentaly offered a lift to a nice old lady earlier in the week while asking for directions). The guy guided us into town, showed us where to park, and walked us to the ATM, even pointng out 2 alternatives if our cards didn't work for some reason. Nice people here.
Had our second puncture of the trip today, the first went flat while we were stationary, but this happened at about 80km. Think the tyre may be a write off, not because of the distance we drove while it was flat, but because once we had stopped, I moved the van off the road and that seems to have caused the rim to run over the inner side wall and put some creases in it. Not sure BFGoodrich import tyres to Kazachstan so may buy a cheap local version and try to get the real thing further along the route.
Camping tonight is the usual "wild camp" - pull off the road and drive a few hundred metres.
Lat 45 02.38 N
Long 64 22.00 E
Distance 8329km - will work out what the correct "adjusted" distance is tomorrow
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