We glance out of our tent into the dark night – and in the lightbeam of our torches discover a river flowing on the right side of our tent. If you don’t know how we got here, read our last blog article. While we still consider what to do, another stream evokes on the left side of the tent. Impressive how the water masses rise, how the dry desert transforms into a broad, meandering river. As fast as possible we fetch all our stuff and move on top of the dam. In the morning all the water is gone, having left behind just a thin layer of ice.
When we finally reach the border we are completely exhausted, we have to keep the joy of the long way downhill in mind to keep us going against the headwind on the washboards. Before just quickly get the exit stamp stamped in our passports…. Or? No ink left in the stamp... We are surprised they don’t have any ink to refill it, seems like the countries poverty is also present in the official offices. So the officer used his whole body weight to achieve a visible stamp, the desk bends like a boomerang, we seek a safe place when he finally lifts the weight and shows a pale mark. We had been four weeks in that stunning country with it’s exhausting climbs. Despite being very tired, we would always go for it again.
Kyrgyzstan welcomes us with heavy wind and snow, that quickly turns to rain. Thus we slow down on the way downhill as we can hardly see anything. When the rain stops finally, we are like under a charm. We see green meadows under snowy mountain peaks. What a contrast! Moreover huge herds of horses and their shepherds, who spend the summertime living with their families in yurts. This includes grandparents and kids. The first kids spot us, run to the street and stop us because they want chocolate and sweets. Just like us! We had passed the last shop a couple of days ago and all our supplies are aready where they should be: In our stomachs. Perfect tarmac leads to the next village and the offers of the shops seem like paradise to us – fresh tomatoes and some other vegetables, cheese, … Electricity and even internet all day long, we are back to civilization! We switch on our phones to listen to the „Bing, Bing, Bing, …“ for minutes. Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram and some other messengers deliver our mail of the last weeks. Mixed feelings, partly we directly wish to be back in the calm mountains.
Mixed feelings, partly we directly wish to be back in the calm mountains. Not necessary, there are plenty ahead of us! It is still 250 km from the border to Osh, with 3200m elevation loss and only some climbs between. We fly down, and getting dressed in raincloths becomes some sort of routine. Such as meetings with Heidi and Valentin in their red bus, each time we are even more happy to see them and directly plan to meet in the same hostel in Osh. From there we will fly to Germany to spend three weeks with our family, friends and to apply for the Chinese visa.
This time we are so happy about it. We already started to fantasize of mums food while cycling Pamir highway. Our bodies urgently need some time to relax and soon we will have this time. Only the visa applications make us sweat, we want to stay as long as possible and this means lots of paperwork. Briefly we need a detailed travel iternary and hotel bookings for every night, flight, bus and train tickets! To put it in a positive way, we know lots of details about nice places to visit now! When we hand in all the documents, they notice we had stayed more than 30 days in Turkey – a “big problem”. The decision will take at least 2 months and it is rather unlikely it will be positive. We manage to get an exception, sometimes tears are helpful, and the necessary interview is scheduled for the next week. After passing we get our visa. We are immensely happy and thankful, expecially Moni who invested more than 3 full days in the paperwork. Afterwards we spent some great time near lake Wörthsee in Munich.
Our bicycles waited all the time in our hostel in Osh. Before we went back we got to meet Lauren and Jay, who had been travelling via Africa to Central Asia and are now on their way to Pamir highway. We immediately liked them and answered all their questions. Of course none of us knew that they had only 4 weeks left to live, they both died due to an terroristic attack in Tajikistan. A car crashed in a group of cyclists and the later the occupants stabbed them. It is difficult to hear stories like this, especially when it happens in a place we have a connection with and while doing an activity we love. When we find out that two of the deceased are Lauren and Jay we feel grieve and even more shocked. During the next weeks, no day passes on which our thoughts are not with the desceased and their families. Our thought are also with the secondary tragedy, that will lie with the amazing, welcoming, hospitable, poor people of Tajikistan. We hope it doesn’t keep too many people of visiting this country and spend some badly needed tourist dollars there.
We try to convert the grieve and numb feelings into pressure on our pedals. And that’s necessary. With Osh we also leave the planned part of our tour. Kyrgyzstan mostly was a transit country on the way to China to us. One short glance to the map and let’s go! The next fixed point is to meet friends from Germany, family Unger. Father and son already visited us for some scuba holiday in Oman, now both parents are travelling by car across Russia and Central Asia. On their way back from Mongolia they follow a similar route to ours for several hundred kilometers. As it is getting close, we decide to meet at the worlds second largest mountain lake, the Yssyk-Kol: 180 km long, 60 km broad and almost 700m deep.
We decide not to take the main road, but the shorter way through the village Kazarman. Not to long after Jalalabad the asphalt ends, which makes us take a closer look to the route. The altitude profile makes us gasp….
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