Well yes, it never ends ... Difficult to describe the feeling of wonder and apprehension when you're in the middle of nowhere, our thoughts are with the caravan of yesteryear who were beating the same path in camel, not to mention our illustrious Cruise Yellow predecessors, who had to find a very long time in the middle of these countries are not conducive to anything other than meditation or the galley ...
So we continued as poorly as well our journey to Turpan, another stage of the legendary Silk Road. We became pros calculating percentages, between the data provided by the onboard computer (amperage, remaining energy), and mileage to be covered, depending on terrain and weather. Of course all this does not take into account the condition of some roads, often single tracks or old signs that you show the path he had taken ... Before a new road was made ..... Hence some unnecessary detours that cost us much of our precious energy and extension steps that went up to 13 hours for the most painful of them .... The "Shanghai" is still brave!
The wind is still very hard all day long and it raises the sand and dust particles charging the sky that irritate the eyes and end up turning the blue into a gradient from orange to gray .. . Temperature, it remains fairly warm (at least for us): 32 degrees in the shade.
Apparently this is not a good spot for mushrooms ... Today we went to the Great Depression Turpan, a huge pool of tens of thousands of "square kilometers to 153 meters below (yes, below) of sea level at its lowest point. The maximum temperature recorded was 50 ° in the shade ... the hottest place in China.
Finally we get to Turpan, an oasis in the desert , a mirage of life in this torrid end of the world: here everything imaginable is grown. Apricots, grapes, sorghum, maize, wheat, melons, peaches, blackberries, plums, all irrigated by fresh water fly to distant mountains in a sixty-ten kilometers, thanks to ingenious underground irrigation systems (dug by hand during tens of years!) called Karez.
facies past few days have changed dramatically, we are well Uighur country. The vernacular language is Mandarin, but in the street, we hear only the local language of Turkic origin.
Religion casting Islam is now, and writing is the most often-used Arabic. In short, it's the total package, and we sometimes forget we are still in China!
In the old city, a seller of mature invites us to come pick fruit directly from the roof of his house. From up there, views of the vines in each private courtyard, supporting the vines out of sight! We rest a moment on the "summer reads", under the incredulous eyes of Badin, the daughter of our host ...
blankets being well guarded, I content myself with a cushion .... Xav
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