Continued – based on Emīls notes.
July 12
The morning starts with the words “приготовите паспорт” again, though this time it is MārtiņšK who says them. Nevertheless some of us including me are disturbed, awake at once and reaching for the passports. It could be nice to watch us from the side at this time :D.
At the stops various things are sold in many trolleys. We buy melons, a watermelon, a bottle of Kazakh wine “Кардинал” (“Cardinal”) and a (too) small bottle of very delicious cognac “Казахстан” (“Kazakhstan”), the most delicious >20% alcoholic drink I have ever tasted. The melons cost around 20-30RUR each, the wine is 400KZT (there was another, “Kagor” for 300KZT in the kiosk). We still don’t have Kazakhstan tenges as they could be get nor in Latvia neither Sweden banks, that’s why we pay for everything in Russian roubles. Maybe the rate isn’t the best (from 1 RUR to 5KZT till 1 RUR to 4KZT), but things we want are still cheap enough in roubles and we don’t mind.
The melons are ripe, aromatic and also very tasty. We also open our daily cans of meat which means that the backpacks will be lighter. Yesterday we ate canned meat of some forest animals like deer and roe, but we didn’t know the English name for roe, so Mārtiņš told to Anders that it was “deer girls” meat. It turned soon to “pretty deer girl” and we will remember this expression for quite a long time since then. That’s why the canned moose meat of today gets a title “pretty men moose” meat.
Emīls has got a bit sore throat. Riču-raču and card games again. At one stop some policemen step in the train. They will come with us till Almaty and check the baggage of newcoming passengers, because in the coming region many people are growing and trying to transport cannabis. Later in night we also see a big fire of a great area at the horizon. Our neighbors told that it’s a normal sight – the police is burning cannabis fields there. It is not allowed to take photographs of policemen in uniforms. Also it is not allowed to take photograph of our provodnitsa in her uniform.
Two melons for one day are enough for us, though we have another two of them left. They are not light and we don’t want to carry them around the whole day in Almaty, that’s why we eat the biggest of them. It is very tasty again and we eat it fast after cutting in pieces. Tomorrow we will have to get up early, that’s why we put most things back in the backpacks already. In the night we try to dance salsa in the corridor of the train, but it’s too narrow for turns. The radiators along the corridor side take up more space than it seems. Although the early waking up next morning, we go to sleep pretty late. Our provodnitsa Zhannar wake us up at 5:30am. We pack the last things, the bags seem lighter.
At half past 7 we arrive in Almaty.