Camping in a WIND STORM in Kazakhstan


It started out as a perfect evening.  We took a crazy dirt road with huge divots to a private beach on Kapchagay Lake in Kazakhstan.  We all pitched our tents and started enjoying the calm waters of the evening.  We were camping with some French families that we had become good friends with as our children all went to school together in Almaty.  It was almost like glass, and the temperature was perfect.  The kids were paddle boarding, digging sand pits, and the adults had fun wading in the water. 
Tents lined up for our perfect evening.

What a great way to learn how to paddle board - on perfectly calm water!
There was barbeques lamp chops, chicken, salads, French cheese, and mojitos to go around.  After the campfire, laughs, and good stories, we all retreated to our tents to be lulled to sleep by the sound of the lake.


Campfires, games, stories and good food for a great, unsuspecting evening!

About 2 AM we were all suddenly woken up by an insane wind storm!  The walls of the tent were being blown so hard that it was laying on my face as I slept! Keith and I were in a separate tent than the kids, so we decided we needed to get out and check on them.  As soon as we were both out of the tent, and thus our weight as an anchor, the tent started ROLLING down the beach!  I went running for it and luckily grabbed it before it got into the water.  I looked around and everyone was emerging from their tents, chasing camp chairs, tables, and tents that were rolling down the beach!  We all scrambled to get everything and make sure no one was injured.  It was too dark to drive back through the dirt road obstacle course, so we parked the cars off the beach between some bushes, anchored a tent to one of the cars, and dispersed between the cars and the one surviving tent.  It was a futile attempt at sleep, especially cause we were laying down in the back of our van, trying not to get poked in the side by metal chair clamps that were on the floor.

That's a good way to turn a bad weather day into something great!

As we woke up in the morning, we saw a kite surfer enjoying the waves.  Wow - did the water look completely different now!  We were all worse for wear, attempted to make some coffee over a tiny camp stove, and quickly made our way back into the cars and started the long drive home to Almaty.  What a different ending to the trip than how we began!

Calm before the storm

Morning after
Location: Kapchagay, Kazakhstan

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