Holiday at the lake

It's funny. No matter who you talk to, if people are travelling in their car for a while, they welcome a break every now and then.
It doesn't have to be a stay in a hotel or hostel (though showers, a proper bed and maybe a kitchen can be very tempting), but it can also just mean to stay at one place for more than a night, not worrying about where to go next.
It sounds weird, but taking a break while travelling is important. You need to give your brain time to catch up with all your experiences, the different landscapes and cultures.
And so we decide to simply do it. Stay a day at the lake. Kazakhstan's steppe had been harshly hot and we still have at least another day of driving through it. Lake Balkash wins.
We spend the day swimming, playing frisbee with Lenny, making crackers with Sara, Tom mends the car and bakes bread and much faster than we know it, it has passed. In the evening we're joined by Margit and Daniel as well, a couple from Zurich, travelling in a VW T5. Tom and I had met them in Nur-Sultan for the first time, but they knew the Kudliks from before.
All of us enjoy a movie night under the stars and plan to spend the next few days driving together. Same destination (Almaty) and Zuzka's birthday is coming up.
Suddenly the day driving through the steppe is just another leg of the journey and doesn't seem so dreadful anymore. Friends make everything better!Read more