Gulmira, our Kasak friend from Georgia, gave us the contact of Eduard to be our guide to explore the desert. He was a real Teddy bear, super nice and calm, by far the cheapest option we could find. His English was as weak as our Russian, but we somehow could communicate together.

We drove 4h with a huge 4x4 to reach the spot, through a very monotonous desertic landscape only populated by some camels, horses and oil extraction industries (we had a look at the price of oil there: 0.40€/litre! 5 times cheaper than in France during the Ukrainian war!).

Bazshira is an incredible spot, very unique, breathtaking. We felt so tiny in the middle of those massive and strange rock formations. And no other tourists around! Perfect feeling of exclusivity. A spot like that in Europe would have been attacked for sure by mass tourism, but in this part of the world, it was almost as if we discovered the place for the first time.

We were surprised to see some life in the middle of this 40°C desert: many birds, insects, we even saw a turtle and a kasak version or Alpes chamois, but much bigger.

We settled down the camp down on the valley, a but under sea level (2350m lower than our Georgian bivouac). Eduard cooked a Beshbarmak, Kasak speciality made with beef and horse meat with potatoes, noodles, onions and a lot of salt.

Windy and rainy night, we could not sleep very well. But we had the whole day to sleep in the car while our brave Eduard was driving!

For this next day, we had a look at the Tiramisu spot, known for its mountains with incredible layers of colors.