On the road again - but the bloody road is closed

We are back on the road and all sorted, after 3 days of using various bank cards to get enough cash to pay for it (at £120.00 max per card per day per withdrawl).

Drove back to Gorno Altaisk with the intention of driving on to Lake Teletsko, stopped for a cafe, got chatting to a local lady that spoke English only to find that the road to Teletsko is closed after a rocket (or part of it) dropped on it yesterday. Apparantly this often happens, the 2008 Lonely Planet stated that 2.5 tonnes of space waste have fallen on the Altai region over time! There are apparantly still frequent launches of Russian Rockets from Baikonur Space Station in Kazakhstan and this bit has apparantly landed on the road and distrubuted some toxic waste in the area.

This reminds me that one night, sitting by a lake in Mongolia we clearly saw what appeared to be a rocket trail, with 3 distinct stages setting off into the heavens, at the time we thought we must have been mistaken, but we were not that far from Kazakhstan at the time and it was in the right direction.

So we are setting off for Chamal instead, which is apparantly also a very pretty location surounded by snow capped mountains, a canyon very important to Altai Mythology and a walk to a series of 6 lakes, so we shall see (if the rain stops that is)