- Nick Hewer is raising money for the charity Hopes and Homes for Children - see www.justgiving.com/nickhewer
I pulled back onto the road to Atyrau, a deeply grateful fellow. Ali, my saviour with the hammer and tyre lever, carried on his way, US$60 the richer. “Thanks you, thanks you,” he had exclaimed, his broad shoulders heaving with excitement and gratitude. We got into a “No, thank you,” competition, which I eventually insisted I had won, and so we parted company, each not believing his luck.
I pulled into the city late that night. It looked a two-story sort of place and I scanned the cityscape for lights. I headed towards some neon and sure enough it was a hotel. Clambering out, I was greeted by two young-bloods and their girls. Young Blood 1 spoke English and Young Blood 2 was pleasantly tipsy. The girls were serious. YB1 told me he had studied English in Margate, which I thought deserved a beer at the best of times and I invited them to join me for a drink.
Alibert, YB1, told me that the road ahead to the next big oil town, Aqtobe, was really bad. “It’s like swimming over big waves,” he said. A delightful young guy, the following morning he took me all around Atyrau, which in daylight turned out to be a high-rise oil town enjoying the boom.
We found a tyre depot and they checked all the wheels and I was on my way. Alibert looked to me like the future of Kazakhstan: bright, smart, educated and, most of all, enthusiastic and energetic. Added to which his brother is in the Kazak KGB. “Helpful,” he remarked casually.
I hit the big waves not long after leaving Atyrau. I couldn’t believe my eyes; they were Atlantic rollers, coming at Hortense one after another. And the hollows were big enough to swallow her whole. I slowed to walking pace, climbing crablike from side to side up the road. There was little or no other traffic so I could take up the whole width.
It took time to work out that the best form of attack was the headlong approach. Slowly. Hortense’s bonnet would sink down, the sump guard would grind along the bottom, her bonnet would climb out, and her petrol tank guard would scrape along and we’d be back on the road for another five meters.
It was impossible to avoid putting the nearside or offside wheels into the giant potholes and so every two or three minutes there was a sickening crash as yet again I miscalculated the angle of attack, or the depth, or any of the other factors that make this an impossible place.
The 6mm aluminium plate protecting the sump and tank took a terrible beating and I couldn’t believe that we’d survive; every crash sounded terminal. The tow points I had welded onto either side of the sump guard were bent as though made of butter. Poor Hortense. It was not meant to be like this pour ma belle.
Very often the road would become totally impassable; as the density of the great potholes increased it became hopeless, and I would simply dive off down into the desert and drive parallel to the road. This could be pleasant. Driving on soft sand was silent and there were no jolts and bangs, just a huge plume of dust following us, and being sucked into the car through every little crack. The cabin was soon caked in dust and it swirled around me as I coughed.
But that was better than driving on lateral-ridged hard sand, as hard as iron. At low speeds, the car shook itself to bits, my teeth chattered and I knew that only big 4WDs and trucks with enormous wheels could manage it. They say it is possible to increase the speed until you find the right frequency, at which time the shuddering stops. Trouble is that there are iron-hard central ridges that can tear your suspension and sump apart at speed.
It’s difficult to know which is better: road or desert. All I knew was that the alternative always seemed better, until I got there.
I cannot find the adequate language to describe the real horror. Maybe the horror was because I was driving alone in the car, and with no other Mongol Rally types around, or indeed anyone around.
My blood turned to ice every time I realised that Hortense could stutter and fail. I really was alone. Every hour