Good morning, dear readers, I have to apologize
for the late postings the last couple of days. But I can tell you now, I had a
couple of very busy and interesting days. After the first day, when we visited the
Katatau Mountains in the Altyn-Emel State National Park- as Anne
reported to you- we were exhausted. But
when the sun rose the following morning, we were clearly awake as ever. We just
had the feeling that Kazachstan would surprise us… And now I can say, it did!
We went to a magnificent place in the immense
park: The Singing Sand Dunes of
Kazachstan. You can find this natural wonder about 180 km northwest of Almaty.
I know that the name will raise some questions… Like “are they actually
singing? And what can you hear? How do they work?” Well we had the same
questions! The Singing Sand Dunes are
nothing more or less than a 3 km long ridge of sand. But if you stand there,
you just feel like a tiny ant. The Dunes looked so powerful, you can’t compare
these dunes with any we know. And when we’re looking at these perfectly shaped
dunes… we could hear them, as if a roaring or booming sound came out of them.
One of the locals told us that the sound is caused by the wind passing over the
sand. 
After a long day of hiking through the National Park and the Singing Sand Dunes, we finally arrived
at a little village where we found shelter for the cold night. Because the climate
in Kazachstan isn’t as warm as we hoped it to be, we prepared for a long night.
In Almaty the temperature was about 5°C during
the day and -1°C at night. However, the region off Astana has a different
climate all together. Astana is known for a spell of frost lasting half a year.
So you can say that Astana knows only 2 seasons, the winter and summer. And, unfortunately we’re still in winter! With temperatures of -9° at night, we had the
most terrible night and none of us got a good night sleep. But we had to move
on, we had a long day of hiking ahead of us, and we had to get to Astana by
nightfall. 
While we’re hiking, we had to pass across an
enormous lake called ‘lake Balkhash’.
It was really impressive. The lake is
one of the largest in Asia. There’s a pleasant atmosphere surrounding the lake. We were told that in the summertime, the lake
is popular with local families who come and enjoy its water and sand.
Unfortunately, the lake is under threat
because of a copper smelting plant located at the lake. So we notice again that
much of nature’s beauty isn’t something that we should take for granted!
After a long walk, we had the pleasure off
taking a ride with one of the locals to the city of Astana. But since it was a very tiring day, I’m going
to get a good night sleep first, I’ll write again tomorrow.
XX
Els
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