Woke up to the sounds of an axe/hacksaw combo being wielded in the nearby woods. Peering out of the tent, I saw an old man huskily lopping branches for firewood about 40m away - and slowly working closer. I started to pack up, but wasn't noticed until the woodsman was about 5m away when he took a swing, cleared a branch, and looked directly into my grinning face. He was a little taken aback, but recovered when I explained that I was traveling by bicycle ...
Headed down into the Aris River valley, resplendent with odors of agriculture and animal rearing. Had lunch in Turar Risqulov consisting of a delicious meat and potato stew that tasted just different enough that it made me forget about cheeseburgers for a few minutes. Started the long climb up and over a ridge extension of the Tian Shan mountain range, stopping in a little village for my bottle of Sprite. Started chatting with the cafe workers, who insisted on being photographed with the disgustingly sweaty Canadian (and even jockeyed for the positions closest to me!) Hit the pass and dropped over into the Boralday river valley.
Had dinner at a cafe in Bawijan Momishuli, where two husband/wife teams at next table were well into the second bottle of vodka. In a generous fashion, they came over at various intervals to drop off little bits of food/beer for me to eat/drink. Less generously, one of the guys wandered over and deposited all his garbage on my table too. Three of the four then wandered off without paying the bill, with the fourth passed out at the table. The cafe staff came out and a somewhat comic/sad angry vs. drunken screeching match played itself out for the next 10 minutes.
Rode downhill for 6km until reaching the river, where I noticed that most of the village was splashing around in the swiftly moving current. Being fantastically sweaty and in the need of a good soaping, I jumped in and chatted with the locals who were kicking back in the river. Rode gloriously wet into the village stopping at a kiosk for a few provisions, and then headed back onto the highway for another 10km until finding a nice 30m-wide strip of forest separating abutting fields. Set up the tent and sat watching the sunset with a Stary Melnik beer in hand. Asleep by 2200h!
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