I spend few nights in Osh in order to get my tired muscles ready for Pamir highway. While being in Osh I was hunting a key to open my bottom bracket, because it had started to click 600km ago. Tom the samurai is excellent bicycle mechanic, and he found a small hole on my bottom bracket, it's not broken, but it seems to be a bit loose. As a smart girl, I had left my bottom bracket key home, so I went to the local bazaar in order to find tools to open the bottom bracket. The local mechanic didn't have many tools and his absolute favorite tool was a hammer. After some hits on lady princess, I was screaming and more calm and smart Tom was shouting njet njet and saved Lady Princes from more hits. The conclusion is that, in the 3th biggest city of Kyrgystan, there was no tools to open my bottom bracket to be able to clean and grease it. The journey will continue with beat boxing lady princess. Later, I met Slovakian adventure cyclist, who was coming from Afghanistan, and who asked me if the bike is still moving forward. My answer was yes and he said that then there is no problem.
Tajikistan money was changed, kilo of porrage bought and I got a baggage from home delivered to Osh by Toon who send it from Biskek to Osh with a taxi driver. So much thanks to you Toon, you didn't save me only once but twice! I haven't met too many cyclist during my trip, but Kyrgystan seems like cyclists highway. It was seven of us going to Pamir highway from east to west at the same time, we left at the same day with Tom and Wow and Mikael and his dad from switcher land left a day earlier. The knowledge, that the next month will be mainly uphill and roughest roads I have ever cycled made me nervous. Am I really able to cycle up the mountains? Does my bike survive the bad roads? Is there really no people and no food? How am I gonna survive with the cold nights with too light sleeping bag? Is my bottom bracket gonna last? Is my tent keeping the rain out? How on earth am I gonna make it up to 4600m with fully loaded bicycle? Why haven't I done good research beforehand, why am I always so unorganized? How come everybody is preparing themselves so much? There was so many questions in my head during the last night before I felt asleep in my comfortable bed in Baynya guesthouse.
What can cyclist pack when they are heading off to the mountains? We knew that it will be three days uphill and two over 3500m passes and Tom bought huge four kilo watermelon, which he wrapped on back of his bike. The further we went the more bigger and stunning the mountains got. Once again, I was on the most beautiful road I have ever been. Sure uphill, but the knowledge that it will be mostly up the next month helped mentally not to get tired. The behavior of local people changed and they were extremely friendly, just so welcoming and I have come into the conclusion that the central Asian babushkas (grandmothers) are the cutest and warmest creatures in the world. In general people in Kyrgystan are friendly, and we have been invited to homes almost every day to eat and have a tea, people give lot of food on the road and children are giving high fives and running next to the bike. Women they give kisses and pet my head and feet (!). Even if the local women are extremely friendly, I really appreciate my cycling company at the moment. For the first time there has been some idiots shouting sexy sexy sexy make love with me sexy sexy over five minutes, until I was ready to hang these men on a tree from their balls. As Tom says, some men don't use pretty language with me. Hosts want to be on my skin and give me massage, youth showing openly their penises. What is wrong with the men here?
I can already understand why bicycle tourers like to come for cycling to Pamir highway and why it's the highlight of the trip for so many people. I am stunned by the simple nomadic life and openess of people, the mountains are just wauuu and they make me smile with all of my heart. The fermented horse milk is served in every corner and before realizing I have a jar of this.. Interesting tasting local treat... and on the other hand half a liter of horse yogurt. For the first time , I am not fancying the local food. I have set a goal though, by the time I finish cycling in Central Asia I can honestly say that yes please give me a mug of this lovely tasting drink. For my luck Tom likes these delictes and he gets my refills as well. The problem is that this is something, that everybody offers. Cars stop on the road to give one liter bottle of horsemilk and babushkas take your hand and bring you into their homes and look that you will finish the half a liter jar of this yougurt and then comes the refill.. As a well behaving girl I am forcing myself to swallow this treat, while my stomach is turning around. Yesterday we got offered this milk for four times and the yougurt was offered twice. In the evening my stomach was like a air balloon and I thought I will explode.
In between Osh and Saritash, there is a double pass, which is over 3000m passes and me and Tom reunited with Wow before first pass. We decided to camp just before the switchback road started. It was hard to find a flat ground to put up our camp, so we asked the local nomad family, if we can put our tents on their garden. They said of course, Amanda got the first bowl of horse yogurt and we pushed our bikes to the small pit of flat ground. Tom was talking with the man of the family. When the man took Toms knife, placed it on his throat, made some universal killing movements and asked for money, Tom got horrified and thought that the man wants to kill him. Tom asked us to come around and we had a group discussion what to do. The man came back, giving us some more horse yoghurt and we had no clue what was going on. When i saw cow giving a birth and the babushka was sitting next to the cow, I decided to go to sit next to her and ask if the man is ok. Babushka took my hand on hers warming me up and petted my hair, she said njet problem with the man. While I was watching the first steps of the baby cow, wow had realized that instead of tom, the man wanted to kill a goat for us, but he wanted money for it. Nobody wanted to kill Tom and we spend the evening watching horses, cows and goats grazing up on the mountains until the rain forced us to go into our tents.
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