THIS IS KAZAKHSTAN - The Mind Blowing Ustyurt Plateau

Good morning guys, welcome back to Kazakhstan. We camped here last night and we had an epic sunset which completely blew my mind and if you want to see that that'll be in the last video but right now we're about to head out and find somewhere new. I'm really excited because I have actually no idea about this place but we're here with the Kazakhstan tourism board and with a good guide and they know it really well. I think West Kazakhstan is not really a place that most people get to. It is firmly off the beaten path. Even when people come to Kazakhstan they usually go to Almaty and they go to the mountains but no one really comes here. Like I was speaking to the guide yesterday and he said out of maybe 200,000 people that live in Aktau maybe 20 of them would even know about this spot and come here so you don't really see any other tourists and we haven't seen any other people whatsoever which is really exciting for me. We're doing even more of that today. We're going to get out and see exactly what we can see. Quick stop off for a viewpoint which is just everywhere here and I'm going to show you. We are heading down there to get on top of one of these mountain things. Seriously, I think I said it in yesterday's video but it just feels like another planet. Planet Kazakhstan. Welcome to planet Kazakhstan. Okay, this is strange. Just stopped off and in the middle of this crater is just loads of, I think it's flint, it's what you use to make fires. Yeah, I can pick one up. Just so randomly dispersed over this whole space. There's loads of little rocks of this but I asked my guide and he doesn't really know how it is formed or why it's randomly dispersed like this but the whole floor of this entire crater is covered in this. You want to know something funny? I just dropped my camera case here and it dropped like my camera case is small and black. I was just looking around for ages because everything here is small and black. I was looking for that, you know, if I lost that in there. Here it is. Hey, lizard. Hey, buddy. Little lizard dude in here. Don't move, buddy. Wow, you would never see him normally. Look at that. That's good. Okay, so for my next feat of incredible stupidity, we've left the jeeps behind and we're climbing. It must be 30 to 40 right now but it's going to be worth it when we get to the top. Okay, well, we made it and if there's one thing I've learned about climbing a random hill is that it's usually or sometimes occasionally worth it and this time it was. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, you don't want to jump this part. Geez. All right, check this out. This is an ancient shell. It's the imprint of the shell anyway if you can see that just there. Which is because however many hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago this used to be a giant ocean. So we would be below the sea level right now but for whatever environmental reason it's now turned into a big desert but you can still see the signs of the shells and they found other fossils here as well. It continues. It is ridiculously hot and there's no shade whatsoever. So once you're on top of here, you're just in the sun. The only way we got here was with our jeeps and camping, driving for hours. It's understandable why this doesn't get more tourism but it is completely epic to see. So if you're really trying to get far off the beaten path then this is a good shout. But we're going to get down quickly now and go to lunch because we're being out in the sun too long already. I think it's like 40 something. I think. Wow, so this is our lunch spot. Yeah, these are from last night. It's so good. Kazakhstanis that are used to the heat and the Finnish. Yep, nope. pretty good spot for lunch and food has been pretty good as well to be honest but one thing I can't deal with is this insane heat and there's no shade at all anywhere so we've just been like staying in the jeeps until the last second because it is just it's between 40 and 50 if I got caught out here on my own there is absolutely no way I would survive it's insane we've found a camel a lot of camels we're on our way back to civilization right now we just found a bunch of camels I think we've got a couple of hours drive with another stop off on the way okay last stop of the day and I'm just psyching myself up to go up there so we've just driven for another hour and now we've come to sand dunes now the jeeps can't get up to the top but we are still going to it's about 5 p.m. now so the heat's come down a little bit sunsets at 8 so we've got to get up there and then see what kind of view we get oh hey shadow geord god I bet he's a lot cooler than I am right now in general I was just saying in the car as well the one thing I could really do with now is a difficult sand dune climb to finish the day that would have been that would be perfect and here we are you gotta count your stars sometimes may as well run it this is cool though yet again has proven that it's always worth climbing things because when you get to the top there's a view good last stop cool to see some sand dunes and funnily enough it brings me back to being in Morocco in the Sahara Desert which really isn't that much of a surprise but I think that's just the heat getting to me so I'm gonna head back to the hotel now have a shower get into Macy and probably have a cold beer but I will get a cup right so then so see you there right made it back to the hotel and just had a shower which felt fantastic and I've also got myself a Kazakhstani beer I think it's anyway that's it for this video we're gonna be doing another thing tomorrow just gonna rest up tonight and chill and then see you again then I hope you enjoyed this the last few days blew my mind I thought it was incredible scenery in a place I'd never heard about and even after having traveled for five years now but places like that that I haven't seen before still completely blow my mind and I loved it so yeah check back for the next one see you again soon and thanks for watching