Is time to go

It has been a month since we arrived in Aksai and it went very fast. We were the matter of interest of so many of our colleagues, friends and local press during our staying.

The donations are still coming in we are now very close to USD 50,000
Once again many thanks to all who have so generously contributed to the charity collection.
The KCWC (Karachaganak Children welfare Committee) has been busy identifying the projects the money will support and they are quite a few important ones.
We will leave tomorrow 19th July at 08.00 am  after having said good by to our friends in the office parking lot. The bikes are in good shape, ready and can not wait to go, the same is for the bikers ready to go and hopefully in the same good shape.
The home trip will follow a different route and we expected it to be more interesting. We will ride south and after leaving Kazakhstan we will go through Russia, Chechenia, Georgia, Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Kossovo, Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia and finally Italy where we are due to arrive the 30th of the month.
The total trip is 6050 km in 11 days averaging 550 km a day.
The challenging bit will be going through Chechenia and Georgia where we have to go over the Caucasus mountains riding on the Georgia Military highway through the Jvari pass at 2,400 mt.
Despide the name the road conditions are challenging, with white top road sections, it will be a good test for our bikes.
We are taking our time riding back home, we will rest one day each visiting Istanbul  and the Svaneti region in Georgia considered to be of interest.
The below is the return trip map, we will attempt to up date the blog on a daily basis.