Thursday, July 30, 2009

Green Green Erolution Cover

ALGERIA TUNISIA

Slovenia, Hungary Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
13500 km 51 days



Abstract
For this trip we thought, wrongly, to serve the agency's San Pietroburgo.it organization. A wrong because the trip has not announced any difficulties. Road conditions at the time of our trip, are good with the exception of about a hundred kilometers before the border Kazakhstan / Uzbekistan Uzbekistani and the entire route, there is no supply shortage, service stations are largely European level even though the practice of paying in advance is not sufficient to the full when it is necessary, a 20-liter tank can successfully solve the problem. There then ventilated the bogeyman of the borders, but with a little 'patience and good will smooth out any problem no more and no less than as in all non-European borders. The problem remains that no insurance company offers assistance (see Europ Assistance, Direct Line, etc), much less the San Pietroburgo.it and unfortunately we have been direct witnesses to this statement, the camper a friend of ours has failed because with a supply of dirty diesel and has been an odyssey, but that's another story. In our opinion the management of the San Pietroburgo.it was bad aggravated by the fact that our traveling companion who, he said, has been appointed agent of lead the group did it with arrogance and taking care of his interests more than those of the group.

Diary
E 'May 23 when we leave and after wandering through Italy, Slovenia and Hungary on 31 and we are in L'viv (Lviv), where we spend a few days of sightseeing and meetings with our traveling companions. The Viv has an old town with beautiful architecture, where guests can stroll among the churches and palaces. The caravan consists of 7 campers and 14 people plus a car in San Pietroburgo.it conducted by the young and Sergey on board our tour escort Vika.
On June 2 at the meeting of all participants the companion, we are asked to adhere to the payment of 650 Euro / camper needed for supplies that will be managed by the organization for convenience.
The idea is good practice and perhaps even pity for our campers have been spent on 445 Euro, paying for the service is good, although these costs would have to fall in the price already paid for the trip, but look more like a 205 Euro hexose despicable than a service.
June 3: Begin the journey itself. The first stage sees c ome to Kiev where we stop at the campsite of Prolisok Tourist Complex, a beautiful arrangement on the access road to the city coming from the Viv.
Day next to a minibus we visit the city by tapping the most salient sites accompanied by a local guide who speaks fluent Italian and the evening dinner organized by the agency in a typical room within the resort, excellent dinner, nice orchestra In short, a nice evening.
The next two days are the first transfer Karkow that leads us to our destination because we do not see the parking lot of a motel on the highway, the second day after crossing the border Ukraine / Russia (5 hours) and arrive at Rossos pause in a classic Russian parking fee.
June 7: morning visit to the Museo degli Alpini, created and managed by prof. Morosov with skill and courtesy that has guided us in the visit awakening in us the memory of the tragic events of the withdrawal of our troops from the area of \u200b\u200bthe Don. After lunch we drove 424 km until the town where we've been Morosovsk. A curiosity: we have met thousands of crows often perched on the side of the road so much that many have been victims of passing cars. Monday, 8
we crossed the Don and Volgograd have achieved.
Volgograd is dominated by a huge statue of the "Great Mother Russia" surrounded by a beautiful park on the border of which was our parking area in the courtyard of Blindazh restaurant where we dined. In the afternoon we went to the foot of the enormous statue and then down the other side to our car we went to visit the war memorial where we witnessed a touching change of guard. A fast tram took us to the city center, Russia's third-largest, completely rebuilt after World War II so that the visit was limited to a kind of open-air museum that collects aircraft and tanks around the one pre-war building remained standing and a pleasant walk along the Volga.
So far we have been accompanied by great fields for most cereals, from now on, the landscape changes, slowly abandon the fields that give way to steppe first and then the desert.
June 9: get out of Volgograd has been a 'long and stressful undertaking, the city and truly great, yet we stayed in a nice Western-style supermarket where we refueled for the next day when, according to the companion, there will be no possibility of supplies of European type. Take the road that runs to the left of the Volga, is a side street but has the advantage of a low volume of traffic, a good bottom and not having to go to Astrakhan to reach the Kazakh border, our goal.
between Astrakhan and the border through an area full of stagnant water in part to the accompaniment of flies and mosquitoes. The flies are made a season, on our return you will not find anyone.
In the evening we are at the border, we go out from Russia and we stopped to sleep in the Kazakh customs area after passport control.
The weather gets warmer, 35 ° C are now the norm, and going forward will increase.
wake up at dawn the following day and completion of customs formalities, well arranged and performed by Vika, so we did not have to do any row and customs control shall be limited to a fleeting visit to the interior of the camper. At 8 o'clock we are already on the road together for a bit 'of miles away from swamps and mosquitoes then the water gives way to steppe, oil wells, herds of cattle and horses assisted from "cowboys" who ride motorcycles Ural.
Near Aturay cross the Ural River, which marks the geographical boundary between Europe and Asia.
touch the town to reach our stopping point where the sign "Camping" was a bit 'optimistic though with a bit' of creativity we can bring water up to our means. No electricity.
June 11: the heat is being felt now reach 40.5 ° C.
The road passes across the desert salt lakes and dry, and was paved recently and with almost no traffic except for a stretch of 25 km, near Sanghiz, where it is still under construction and has to travel on a dirt track. The area between Aturay Beyneu and is characterized by the presence of oil wells, therefore, meet at times and refineries, the road is often accompanied by the railway line on which to spend a lot of trains made up of many tank cars. A Beyneu we supply and we are approaching the Uzbeki border: 86 km of dirt road covered in about 3 hours by paying constant attention to potholes and stones, at 19.30 we arrived, exhausted, on the border, we put ourselves in line outside the bar for go tomorrow morning, dinner and well-deserved rest even though the place is not the best.
The next morning, with the valuable support of Vika, who worked in Cyrillic writing all the necessary forms, we start the the Kazakh customs operations (opening hours 9.20). After about 4 hours and we also passed the border Uzbeka with the "Welcome to Uzbekistan" spoken in perfect Italian by a young customs officer. The time is long only so much red tape, controls the motor home are practically nil. The road continues for a long distance to be excavated, then improve, but there are routes to be on track and on our return that has already surfaced that he had just ruined the great heat that melts the asphalt. In the evening at a local stop on the road for the night.
June 13: Continue with stretches of asphalt and gravel. At 10 am arrival at a stopping point where the two campers who have a smaller tank, a Ducato Iveco Daily 3000 and a refueling from cans of diesel fuel held by the operator, we will know later that this supply is necessary in order to receive water supply with which all the campers. Do I must say that the two campers could use the gas canisters that everyone had to follow, but the St. Petersburg. It in order not to pay the water supply had to do this supplies of oil that turned out to be deleterious I want to make clear that the return water in the same place we did not refuel with diesel. A few km after 3000 that the Duchy had fuel stop with the fuel light on and was no longer possible to put it back in motion, in the afternoon to ask a passing tow truck to the nearby city of Nukus. I omit the details of the frantic evening and night spent with local mechanics, extremely available but unable to repair an engine so modern and sophisticated. The next afternoon we set off for leaving our friends in Khiva Nukus assisted by Sergey, which unfortunately only speaks Russian. The way to Khiva through the Amu Dary a picturesque little bridge of boats co reassuring. L 'Amu Darya and the main river widely used for irrigation in Uzbekistan that he no longer feeds the Aral Sea is now low in the shadow of what it once was. The parking
Asia Khiva is the hotel's courtyard, beneath the walls of the old city, with beautiful flower beds and a swimming pool, we were provided with water and electricity.
June 15: visit the city of Khiva, with a nice young man as a guide who speaks Italian very well. Khiva is a city very interesting old town (Ichon-Qala) is completely surrounded by walls and being small can be visited by a beautiful walk through medresse, mosques, minarets, mausoleums, bazaars and a more interesting of the other (the gallery is available at the end of this diary). He concluded the day for dinner at a local Old Town entertained by a show music and local dances. Although small Khiva deserves a longer stop. Today we learned that you can not repair the motorhome of our friends in Uzbekistan, and we should find a suitable way for transportation to the nearest Fiat factory in Russia. Our hostess is in charge of finding the right truck but will not be easy.
The next day we go to Bukhara, the road runs between the mighty Amu Darya in Turkmenistan and the whole area under cultivation, mostly rice, the river through irrigation. Gazojak when we get to the post of the border with Turkmenistan, the road turns sharply across the river on a railway bridge and continue into the desert to Bukhara where we will stop in two days Semurg hotel in the square, again supplied with electricity and water.
June 17: tour of Bukhara, here is aware of being closer to China than to the influence that European cars are 90% for small carts of Daewoo, the ladies use colorful umbrellas to shelter from the sun and young students, the university is behind the hotel, are all dressed up with skirt or trousers, white shirt and blacks. The day's tour begins with a transfer to the center to the edge of a small taxi Matiz and so we experienced the crazy driving of the Uzbeks with a lot of minor collisions.
Bukhara has a historic center still occupied, and markets are frequented by citizens, the feature pool surrounded by mulberry trees and built
covered bazaar with galleries and domes so that fresh air circulates even on hot days as those of our stay. Particularly interesting is the Kalon minaret to the adjacent mosque and Medressa Mir-i-Arab still popular with students so that you can not go beyond the lobby and observe from a grateful students who converse in the courtyard full of plants. Although this visit we ended with a dinner set up in the yard Medressa Nadir Divanbegi with a folklore show and a fashion show, a nice dinner, but clearly one of the tourist, even if there were many local diners. The day after day we have at our disposal we spend hanging out around the city between bazaar beginning with that of the jewelers and at the end of the day we take a trip to the market's most modern part of town where prevailing prices of fruits and vegetables we are ridiculous.
June 19: towards Samarkand. The road is often a good 4-lane paved and well G'Uzor we stop for lunch, a city completely anonymous except that it is the closest point of our trip to Afghanistan (only 220 km). In the afternoon we stopped in Shakhrisabz, the birthplace of Tamerlane, where we visit the Palace Ak-Saray (White Palace) which now remains only a part of the great main entrance, a modern statue of Amir Timur (Tamerlane) and the Mosque of Kok-Gumbaz. Now
winding road climbs up to the pass Tahlagarocha of 1788 meters on which the sign stands in Samarkand where we took many photos of our trip to remember. Central Samarkand Hotel Accommodation in the square, electricity and water supply.
On Saturday 20 is devoted to the visit of the legendary Samarkand on board a comfortable bus, needed because unlike Bukhara and Khiva, which you can safely turn standing here the distance between a site and the other are considerable. We visited the Shakh Zinda (the living king's tomb), which faces an alley on the right and left the graves of family members of Tamerlane, coated inside and outside of splendid glazed majolica tiles. At the end of the road before entering the contemporary cemetery is the grave of a cousin of Muhammad who brought Islam in these regions, rightly called the king's tomb alive. This site is a place of pilgrimage and is therefore fairly crowded one of the things that most impressed us in this city. We then visited the observatory of Ulugbek, the giant mosque of Bibi and the Museum of Khanym Afrosiab. A quick snack at our camper in the hot sun, we now come to 40 ° C, made bearable by the air conditioner evaporative Vies of which we can not help but praises. Continue our visit with the Guri Amir Mausoleum, where a slab of dark jade indicates the burial of Tamerlane and those close to the white marble tombs of Ulugbek, the masters of Tamerlane and his two sons. The simplicity of the tombs is opposed to the sumptuousness of glazed tiled dome dominated the color gold.
When we go to the magnificent Registan, a triumph of pottery dominated by the colors blue and gold. The Registan of Samarkand is the main square where medieval buildings overlooking the three most visited cities: Medressa Ulugbek, the oldest and perhaps the most beautiful face of this Medressa the Sher Dor, known for the two cats represented on the portal, and between the two Medressa Tillya Kori. A day
available after the tour allows us to visit the bazaar near the Mosque of Slob Khanym Bibi, where you can buy everything from fruits and vegetables, to sweets, to clothing and hardware. In the vicinity of our parking then we discovered the local GUM department store as nothing to do with those most famous of Moscow, this is a bleak place where some sellers, most of shoes and clothing displaying their wares.
June 22, began the return trip, our goal is to reach Bukhara and use the fastest "Royal road" that would allow us to visit the site Nurata making a small detour, but Controversial traffic problems along the way we have to cancel this visit. Stop for lunch at a caravanserai and a water tank uninteresting, we reached Bukhara stood at the same hotel came.
The next day we drove for 523 km up to Nukus retracing the path taken part in the first leg, ugly though paved, full of holes and a really hot day. The only positive thing was the reunion with our friends who had already been achieved and that our escort Vika dall'autoarticolato had found, not without difficulty, in Samarkand and the driver of which had a lock-negotiation of an economic and logistical fact the truck would have followed our caravan to spend together and customs in order to enable our partners to sleep in their bed at night while the path would have been guests of our campers.
The following days we walked out from Beyneu Zhambay and in Kazakhstan 27 days to reach the Astrakhan in Russia where we had to find a Fiat factory able to revive the RV failure, but this has proved incorrect. Mr. Grigorich Firsov holder workshop at which we stopped, yet providing computers for troubleshooting the Duchy, but nothing has been unable to Russia has called a half to see to solve the problem then informing us that the only possibility would be an expert at a workshop in the latest generation engines or directly to Fiat in Rostov to Kiev in Ukraine. A special thanks to Mr. Grigorich warm hospitality with which he dealt with us on Saturday evening and Sunday morning.
same evening of Sunday 28 in Elista us to visit the Buddhist Temple that we have carried out the next morning and then continuing on to the border with Ukraine, with some past difficulties in transporting the camper on the truck Uzbekistan. Immediately after the border we separated from the rest of the group that went to Zaparoje. We, Mery and we continued with Giancarlo quickly Kiew Fiat and workshop at which we arrived on the morning of July 2.
Italian Society of Kiew, dealer of Fiat group, which goes to staff a thank you, completed the task on day 7, day 8 there was no need for further intervention, with attached tow truck because we were already on the way back. The following day we crossed the Ukraine and then roads and highways we finally reached our European-style home on July 12.


PHOTOS
UZBEKISTAN:

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