11th December 09: school's out!

The term has been long and hard work, yet at the same time it seems to have flown by. Except for the last 2 weeks where to describe myself as limping towards the finish line would be far too generous. More like crawling, depleted in energy, heaving myself forward using only my finger nails.

I am still not sleeping properly and the pills from the doctor, which I don’t take unless I really need to, seem not to work all the time. This added to long days, extra curricular activities, report writing and trying to get my head around how my relationship with Jess came to an end has left me lost and drained. Not now getting married means the future is blank, uncertain and foggy.

However, in the last 10 days of term, my life in Almaty began to recover slightly from this huge dip. I have spoken more Russian than in the whole of the preceding term and have met some interesting new people which always gives me a buzz and adds so much to daily life.

Couch Surfing is to blame - and it’s been great fun. For the uninitiated, see note* below. I logged on and joined the Almaty group and spotted a message from a French traveller who is riding to Korea on a reclining bicycle. Not being the first French cyclist I have met passing through these parts, I decided to contact him and go for a coffee. Xavier (32, from Paris, and a history teacher on sabbatical) turned out to be excellent at English and fascinating conversation. If you are signed up for couch surfing it likely means you will have a similar attitude to social adventure and the fact that he is travelling through Central Asia’s bitter winter meant he must surely share the sense of adventure which brought me to this southeast corner of Kazakhstan.

Long story short, he is doing this mammoth trek as a testimony to life after cancer. He isn’t as crazy as Bastion, the French cyclist who couch surfed with us last December, and will be staying in Almaty for the duration of the winter, to learn Russian and acquaint himself with local culture. So I agreed to let him stay in my flat for the month of our Christmas vacation. Risky as it may sound on the surface, it is clear that he is totally trustworthy and it is a pleasure to be able to pay back some of the generosity and help that was paid to me by so many people on my travels through New Zealand and, more recently, in Turkey and Italy on the return leg of the failed trip to Kazakhstan.

As for me, I’m off to the UK for a few days to prepare for Christmas on the edge of the Sahara Desert. A ‘new-to-me’ Yamaha XT600e (02 reg) has been carefully prepared by my brother and is complete with aluminium pannier boxes, desert tyres (road legal by a hair’s breadth) and a large Acerbis tank which will give me an easy 300mile range. Leaving Portsmouth on Weds 16th December on a two night crossing to Bilbao, Spain, I’ll take two days riding through Spain to Gibralter for the ferry across to Tangiers. I should be in northwest Africa by Monday 21st.

Planning has been no more detailed than buying a ferry ticket, a map of Morocco and a book about 4x4 tracks in southern part of the country. The book is written by Chris Scott, the guy who sold me the Yamaha Tenere I bought for the trip to Kazakhstan (but sold in favour of the BMW I needed to  take the extra passenger and luggage). Flicking through the pages, the all colour photos show ‘my’ actual  bike in various stunning locations in Morocco. An odd but intriguing feeling.

Now is my chance to actually do some of the kind of riding I hoped for on the trip to Kaz. My current Yamaha has proved itself on the muddy, rocky byways of Chew Valley and North Somerset so I have no worries that it will outperform the heavier Tenere in Morocco‘s gravelly rocky mountain tracks and desert valley trails. Sahara sand here I come…

note*: Couch surfing is a website where you list yourself as willing to received guests on your couch (which can of course be a more appealing spare room) and it generally caters for the younger back packer types who are passing through and need a couple of days accommodation. You offer this free of charge, but with the (likely) possibility that you will be like minded and get on well and will receive a glowing review on your website profile. This then gives assurances to prospective hosts when you decide to travel and ask for help with accommodation. [check out www.couchsurfing.com for a detailed insight].