T
he customs officer that was attending me
was a young guy, really friendly with quite
acceptable English. I guess that is why they
entrusted him with the care of foreigners who
had chosen the worst possible way to enter
Uzbekistan: In their own vehicle from
Kazakhstan. And I had chosen the worst of the
worst, the road that leads to Aktau, on the shores
of the Caspian Sea, and crosses the endless
desert all the way to this border. Those drivers
who come from Turkmenistan or the Kazakhstan
city of Atyrau will find a more reasonably paved
road.
I had the hell of the dessert all to myself. From
Aktau to Beyneau there are 470 miles of a dusty
barren plain. A hell of potholes, dust, sand as fine
as talcum powder and what seemed a live tongue
of cratered rock. To add to that the bike was
rattling in a horrible way. It was at the stage where
I thought it was going to disintegrate underneath
me. The wind blew hard raising clouds of dust
that blocked my vision, hiding the potholes with
both dust on my eyes and fesh fesh on the ground.
I was struggling so much that I began to wonder
what the point of doing all this was? The answer
I found was to stop asking myself those types of
questions in the first place and start remembering
that I was doing it because I had compromised
myself to do it, no matter how folly that thought
felt.