Day 81, July 17, 15km before Otmok Ashoo (Pass) - 15km beyond Otmok

40km - 4976km, warm 32C, 20km tailwind, 0 shots, 0 Lenin, Camping

Had breakfast tea with the yurt family again and then sat back to watch the delightful spectacle of the weekly lamb slaughter. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the ritualistic blood-letting and skin-peeling and felt a strong kinship with the Meat Industrial Complex, I was glad that the Maddux gang never turned our backyard into a makeshift abattoir. (A little more prodding of Zane could of had that calf flown in from west Texas ...)

Started the climbing about 1030h with ~15km to go up the pass. The going was a slow grind over a steepening grade (now about 12%). Peddling in granny gear through unwelcomed headwinds, I made it to within ~3km of the top before the thunder started rumbling in the valley below. With a pursuant storm urging me uphill, I finally reached the 3330m Otmok Pass ~1330h. By that time I was caught in the middle of a thundersnow with a slight bit of hail thrown in for added enjoyment. Stopped only 10 minutes or so to take a few photographs and to cram my chilled fingers into my armpits, then I pointed my nose downhill on the 10km track to Otmok town.

The descent was pretty glorious with speeds reaching ~60km/h on even steeper grades. Sadly, I had to apply the brakes to prevent man and machine from launching off the switchbacks into oblivion. My braking apparatus started to get really hot and was emitting a sweet acrid metallic odor inspiring me to stop for a 10 minute cool-down in the near-freezing mountain air. I reached the bottom of pass pretty quickly, headed uphill for 300m (to say that I had been on the Road to Dushanbe - think 'Spies Like Us'), and then went to local cafe for a big lunch/finger warming session fashionable attired in my sleeping bag.

After lunch I went outside to make a few repairs and promptly broke off the attaching clip on one of my front bags. After dropping F-bombs all around the village, I embarked on hasty repairs involving an odd assortment of bungee cords and Velcro straps. Rode another 15km downhill before running into yet another thunderstorm, where upon I decided to stop outside of a little yurt village and ask at the nearest encampment if I put up my tent. Quickly ruined my appetite having kymyz (fermented horse milk) and kyrt (even more sour horse cheese balls) with the family and, after a more palpable bite to eat, went into my tent. Sleep was not quickly forthcoming, though, as I was swarmed for the next few hours by local children all wanting to stare at the oddly bearded foreigner. I finally drowsed off ~2300h listening to the sounds of heavy road traffic that were to orchestrate my evening's dreams.