da Shadow. A bonfire, cold beer and
cognac, serenaded by the Shadow rid-
ers guitar. A starry sky above us and
silent mountains around us made my
day.
Next day, leaving my luggage in the
camp, I rode along the most beautiful
part of the Chuya highway towards
the Kosh-Agach town, located near
the border with Mongolia. There I
met several motorcycle travellers, in-
cluding Fred from the USA on s Suzu-
ki DRZ400 with California plates. Fred
was going to Mongolia and then on to
Vladivostok. Good plan!
I showed him the badge on my vest,
from the 1st California Highway. I
rode the 1st California Highway in
2013.
After wishing Fred good luck I went
to the Tarkhatinsky megalithic com-
plex - a monument of the Bronze Age:
a circle of stones of various sizes, with
petroglyphs - ancient rock paintings.
Sometimes this place is called the
Altai Stonehenge and local shamans
consider this a sacred place and on
certain days do some mystical rituals
there.
On the way back to camp I made
a detour to Mars - a site where low
mountains have a red-orange hue and
remotely resemble the canyons of Ar-
izona or the surface of the red planet,
Mars. Heavy rain prevented getting to
close to the mountains and canyons
however, the road was magically cov-
ered by a full rainbow and incredible
colours. There’s little surprise that Al-
tai translates as “golden”!
Next day was one of the brightest
of my entire trip. I’ve been riding a
Triumph Tiger just for two seasons,
before that I owned big cruisers and
had no special enduro training. I had
to go on steep ground and stony roads
to the Aktashinsky Repeater, which is
located at an altitude of 3050 meters
above sea level. The road is gravel
and quite steep, with large stones in
the first part and small gravel in the
second and you must ride it with full
throttle. It was challenging and re-
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