Day 82, July 18, 15km beyond Otmok - 13km before Kyzyl Oi

81km - 5057km, hot 36C, little wind, 0 shots, 0 Lenin, Camping

I was awoken at 700h by a two-year-old pounding on my tent inviting me to yurt breakfast tea. I tried to explain/plead that I wanted a few more hours of sleep, but she ran off and got the three-year-old to explain it to me (who in turn got the eight-year-old to convince me to come). Now understanding that resistance was futile, I grabbed my sleeping bag and headed over to a meal of bread an Aspic-like concoction consisting of little bits of beef and onion enveloped in a thick jelly of beef fat (i mean, really, who could say no to that?). Having had my fill, I headed back to the tent and slept for another hour and then packed up at a leisurely pace and worked on my back brake until I was moderately satisfied (the disk had been damaged by the guy repairing my back rim).

I then jumped on the M41 (the road to/from Dushanbe!) and headed downhill for 18km until running into two South Koreans cycling for eight months from Beijing to Lisbon. We chatted for a little bit (while they had three or four cigarettes!) exchanging pleasantries and contact/road information. Went another 22km until finding a cafe for lunch. Halfway through the meal, I spotted another cyclist (Swiss guy named Andre) coming over downhill and ran outside and stopped him. Chatting for a short while, we noted that our routes were the same for the next 250km and so we decided to ride together to Kochkor.


Another 20km of the M41 highway took us to the foot of the Too Ashuu pass - and the start of the A367 road with vanishing asphalt and wonderfully large gravel. We rode 20km down through farmlands eventually reaching the mouth of the Kokomeren canyon, a heavily cut narrow valley with a raging river with 30km of Class V rapids. We stopped 13km short of the Kyzyl Oi town site at a nice bend in the river, and set up camp on a sheltered terrace. Dinner consisted of a noodle and tomato sauce combo with some fine Korean ginseng tea. Sleep followed quickly thereafter to soothing sounds of rushing water - and a lack of exotic animal noises.