Burabay National Park, KZ

The steppe in this country is so vast, one needs to travel at least 3.5 hours to see anything resembling hills and mountains. So, for a $1.50, I took a first class train to do just that, and visit Burabay National Park for the day. Sure, the train car doors don't stay closed and the windows only open fifteen degrees, but the squat toilets have a sturdy grab-handle for stabilizing from the non-regulation track gauges. The seats are surprisingly not uncomfortable and there is a food service car that the ticket taker promised to offer tea, coffee, chips, and cakes - except not on this particular day when the vendor never showed. No worries, because I packed GORP and water, surely a highlight for every child and adult.

 

Suddenly, the flat turned into Burabay hills and the second our feet hit the ground, my friend immediately began negotiations with a cab driver to transport us the rest of the way for a 30 minute drive in a van with 1/2 functioning seatbelts and music videos queued up on YouTube. The national park felt like a mix of Dirty Dancing nostalgia and a tin of sardines, with tightly packed resorts and tightly packed trees lining the road that circles the park. Paddle boats, row boats, cheddar wheel shaped boats, pontoons crowded on the most picturesque side of the lake. Bike and scooter rentals lined the pedestrian path, as were opportunities go dress like a regal Kazakh to enhance core memory making. I just about lost my mind when I found out I could hold a real hawk while posing as a powerful nomad.

Some of the mountain hikes surrounding the lake take 4-5 hours to climb, but they require guides and advanced equipment with peaks having noticeably sharp inclines and treacherous drop offs. Most visitors stick to the less demanding 30 minute incline to the Bolektau observation point. At the top, we were met with gusty winds, sunshine, and Kazakh teens dancing to love ballads blasting from a portable speaker. One person gave us beef jerky and another person gave us hard boiled eggs. I handed out fistfuls of GORP, because everyone loves it. Talk about winning! 

Toward the end of the day, we grabbed proper food at Coffee Boom, a popular Kazakh restaurant chain that does some things well like soup, coffee, and cakes, and a few things terribly, like bruschetta. My friend insisted we experience at least the short tour of the park’s museum before our 5pm pick up, so we did. Normally, I champion the idea of trying everything at least once - but the price of the tour was stupidly expensive for what was on offer: fiber optic stranded “leaves” hanging over tree peep holes of Kazakh cultural sites, an immersive video of a swimming whale, and a mural of nomads on horses, the end. 

The driver who brought us to Burabay was the same one who took us back to the train station. He challenged all notions of safe driving the winding roads by texting and voice messaging his wife who was zero percent pleased he had not come home yet to deal with his domestic responsibilities. Insisting he’d be home in 20 minutes, he sped up and drove with ferocity insisting too that we’d surely hit traffic, and miss our train if he didn’t hussle… and drop us a safe 45 minutes head of schedule. The train ride home was mostly uneventful,  though the fear that open windows cause health problems is still very prevalent around here, so our fellow train mates demanded all windows be shut, so we were trapped in everyone’s body odor, farts, and fish snacks. But hey - the price to travel was right. Right?

Ruling fairly and wisely.

View from the lake on a row boat while listening to Kazakh techno at full volume.
This is the way.

Janky cheese wheel boat.

Mid-paddle pit stop.

Birder photobomb.

Bolektau Obs Point. A good spot for snacking and selfie-ing.

Psychedelic and random.

She’s a total natural.

A literal peep show