We toppled from the plane, through immigration (again) and out to the carousel area where our bags had miraculously appeared. Drivers hired from the Embassy, Boris and his son Alex, were waiting at arrivals to meet us, and were eager to start the journey as we were already an hour and a half behind schedule due to the delay at Astana and it had started snowing.

In front of the airport sat our carriages – one shiny modern 4×4 to be driven by Alex, and one minibus which had seen some mileage (and lived through ‘interesting’ times no doubt) to be driven by Boris.

The boys set about loading all the bags onto the roof rack of the minibus, covering it with plastic sheeting, and then squishing anything that was left into the boot of the 4×4 while the girls stood about taking photos of them doing it. In no time at all we were ready and raring to go. Just got to decide now who travels in modern luxury, and who gets the party bus…

As we pull away from the airport (obviously in the party bus) it’s 1255, and the journey is expected to take us about 7 hours. A light snow is falling as we head out of the airport complex, and as excited as I am about the snow, I can’t help but be concerned about the reactions of the others. Snow is not good news.

Having had no view of the Steppe from the window on the flight, I’m now fully focussed looking out of the party bus window so that I can wonder at the nature reserves, national parks and not insignificant mountains that our route will pass. As we leave the streets of Almaty behind, the snow falls thicker and faster and a heavy mist obscures the mountains that I know are there. I close my eyes and imagine what the mountains of Central Asia look like, and immediately see my only real point of reference, complete with Milka Cows and Tyrolean ski chalets. I know the Zailiysky Alatau range and later the mighty Tian Shan are there; right outside the party bus, hiding from me in the mist bearing no resemblance at all to their European counterparts.

The hours roll on. The fabled mountains fail to appear through the snow. We all try to snatch some sleep.

The actual border between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan is only 25km away from Almaty, but the nearest border crossing that was both accessible in the weather conditions and open to foreigners took us west towards Bishkek when we wanted to go east towards Karakol. The snow, the ill-maintained roads and the capabilities of the party bus made the journey slow going. At 1800 we finally reached the Kazakh/Kyrgyz border and joined a 4 lane queue of cars and minibuses all jostling for position as the 4 lanes went down to 2, and then once at the head of the queue two cars were let out towards the border at a time. After an hour of inching forward towards the barrier, it was our turn. Boris took the minibus through and we headed out into the snow to go through the border crossing on foot as we needed to queue up to have our visas inspected. We joined the queue, and before we knew it, we were on our way again – almost exactly one hour after arriving at the border.

We had not driven 200 yards into Kyrgyzstan before we were stopped by police at a makeshift checkpoint. The policeman checked over the vehicle documents, the vehicle, and all our passports but could find absolutely nothing wrong through which to illicit a hefty bribe from us to continue our journey. Boris paid 500 Som (about €10) to the guy as he still didn’t want to let us go. Boris described this as ‘lunch money’ and apparently it is common for the Kyrgyz police to stop Kazakh registered cars as they come over the border and demand payment of a fictitious fine. This is ‘lunch money’ as it goes straight into the back pockets of the policemen who are poorly paid and live near poverty; by even Kazakh standards.

Bribe paid, and we are heading off again into the snow.

In Kyrgyzstan it’s illegal not to stop and give help to someone broken down at the roadside. The 4×4 was equipped with a winch, and as the day turned into night and the snow continued to fall, we saw more and more cars abandoned or struggling on the poor roads and we had to stop for those without someone already helping. We came across the first car requiring help about an hour from the border. The car had come off the road and careered down a grass bank; but the 4×4 made easy work of the rescue and soon we were on our way again. For about 20 minutes until we came across the next.

At almost exactly 10pm we finally reached the entrance to the Issyk-Köl National Park. The Park comprises the whole of the lake area, and as we slowed to the gated entrance we noticed a huge map of the lake and surrounding park area. The mood in the car lifted significantly – we were nearly there! We were about to start one of the most beautiful parts of the journey with the road hugging the shore of this stunning lake and the fact that it would be dark and we wouldn’t be able to see anything didn’t matter; being at Issyk-Köl and in sight of our final destination of Karakol was enough to give us the second (third? fourth?) wind we needed to perk up.

I never can decide whether knowing the reality or remaining in blissful ignorance is the better of the two evils. As it was, we had no choice – F jumped out of the party bus and into the snow to show us where we were on the map and then where we still had to get to. The two points were literally on opposite sides of the 170km long 70km wide lake. Spirits dipped a little. The time estimate for the remaining drive was another 2.5 hours. We’d come this far, surely we could manage another couple of hours? How were we to know that we actually had another 6 hours in the now not-so-party bus?

No snowploughs, no gritting lorries and even no roadside grit makes for treacherous conditions when the snow is falling quick and fast and the roads are uncleared. At 1am we came to the third car. This one had skidded off the road and the front bumper was nudging the shore of the lake. We tried to tow the car up the slope, but all that happened was that the minibus slipped back. Soon the 4×4 caught up with us and another random car was winched to safety.

Finally we hit Karakol and the roads seemed to be improving; we were sliding about less and it had been at least an hour since we had needed to stop to help any roadside snow car casualties.

With the end in sight, about 1.5km from the resort, the party bus slid to a halt and refused to get any grip up the final hill. Another hour was spent trying to tow and then winch the bus up. On the third attempt we had success and at 0430 in the morning we finally fell into bed; exhausted from our epic journey.

We had left home at 1300 German time on Friday which was 1700 Kazakh time on Friday. We arrived at the chalet in Kyrgyzstan at 0430 on Sunday morning – 35 and a half hours later and 41 hours since I last woke up in a bed.