The bunk bed here creeks like I’m in a low budget horror film, and I share the room with a strange collection of men, one of whom just spent the last fifteen minutes deciding whether to wear his socks over or under his winter leggings. He rolled the leggings down over his sock, spent a good minute smoothing out every crease, and then reverted, rollong the sock up over the legging and beginning the smoothing all over again. I was transfixed as this went on, one leg, then the other, and back again. But alas, watching him has given me no clues as to what I ought to do with the winter (except perhaps that I’d rather not spend it in this room).
I’m in a hostel in Atyrau, Kazakhstan, feeling ever so slightly at a loose end having decided to end this years walking season here. Three weeks in Kazakhstan, but only seven days of that on my feet, the remainder spent on my arse, doing nearly nothing at all. In truth, I never fully arrived in Kazakhstan. I’m still half-in/half-out of that unforgettable Russian dreamscape. So when a cold front blew through the steppe and for a week the daytime temperatures refused to climb higher than 6°C, with freezing nights, followed by two days of some of the most intense rain I’ve ever known, I was more or less ready to call time on this longest season of the walk. I wanted to finish in a city, for logistical reasons more than anything else, so set my sights on Atyrau. Another two days walking, and two nights spent barely sleeping, directly on the freezing sand dunes of the steppe, after my air mat blew a leak, saw me to the city, and I’ve spent every day since in the warm indoors of various gloriously centrally heated buildings.
I make very few plans in my life, but I’ve learned in recent years that having a plan for the winter is good, as I seem to find winter’s more difficult than most people. The plan had been to return to Georgia (Kazakstan has a relatively short visa, so staying here is not an option) and pass the winter months with Helen and Irfaan, but they’ve decided Georgia is too cold for them, and so are cycling in the direction of Cyprus instead.
So what now? Avvai and Kyle spontaneoulsy reached out to say I’d be welcome at theirs for another winter in Vancouver. Paul asked if I’d be back in the UK at all so we could collaborate on the book. Jonny is beginning his dissertation focusing on male cultural/sexual shame and I’d be very interested to be proximate to him so as to continue those conversations that we began in Armenia. And of course, I could chase down Helen and Irfaan in Cyprus.
It’s wonderful to have so many great options, but it does make deciding difficult.
