Project VELAIA

I left Tashkent in the noon with some3 remaining diarrhea but the way to Angere was mainly flat and I rested for some time in the cooling shadow of a tree after having Tashkent left behind.

When I entered into the valley of Angere I saw this gigantic coal power station and it has not been the only one as another followed directly after the city of Angere, located next to a big coal mine under a dam which kept the water away. The air in the valley should therefore not be called air any more; the congestion was way too strong!

I spent the night under apple trees and found a way to hide my bicycle by putting the green biwak sack over it.

In Angere I changed another 10$ to SUm and began the long ascend to a 2400m pass where I was stopped by the military and have shown a card of Georg Gotzler, Schorsch, who had passed here just a few weeks earlier on his recumbent. The mountains on the uphill from Angere looked really bad as there were streets and even more streets in the building phase everywhere.

The downhill that followed endured for 70km but I stopped in between to get a meal which they wanted to get 4000 SUM for; I told them that I was willing to pay 2000 and gave them this sum – after 2 minutes of discussion they accepted and apologized for trying to cheat on me.

The remaining 200km to Osh were mostly flat and so I camped in the evening only 10km away from the border.

Crossing the border the next day was nearly hassle free and on the Kyrgyzs site I only got a stamp into the passport – I think the Uzbeks can learn quite a lot from the Kyrgyz

After changing some money I visited an internet cafe but realizing that the connection was too slow I didn’t upload the pictures I had taken but left for finding a place where I could get some sun cream. In a pharmacy thez sold me something that made my skin yellow but I didn’t want to risk a sun burn and used it only once. Instead I got sun cream from my friends, Goska and Herve from www.develotour.fr. I met them at the beginning of the uphill to a smaller 2406m pass just before Golcha and together we continued through the magnificent valleys.

In the evening just before it got dark we arrived at the pass and because of them speaking Russian we could spend the night in a yurt where we could even put our bikes inside! We had much fun and interesting conversations: Goska (28) is a environmental journalist and Herve (33) a teacher and studied glacierologist; both have already traveled a lot and Goska speaks 6 languages.

The next morning we continued together first on the downhill to Golcha and then along a river bed towards Taldyk pass. The street changed from pretty good to miserable and back from time to time. In the noon we met Nicola, a French guy who goes from KZ to Afghanistan by horse and we had a pretty long chat.

We continued and took a bath a few kilometers further where the horseman met us again and the two cyclists gave their water filter to him because his one had broken due to overusage in dirty Uzbek water.

 

The discussion with Nicola was really interesting and opened my eyes to another way of sustainable traveling and the logistical differences to my choice (and to the way Samuel from samu.cat is traveling) – he rides the horses for 35-45km a day and always has to provide enough water and food (grass mainly).

On the way up to the pass we had a one hour lasting race with 2 harvesters that were in our opinion in the completely wrong place as we couldn’t make out any fields that could be harvested.

The night was spent 200 meters away from a small restaurant over a river with a bridge that was not really latest bridge building technology but more like stone age coupled with old Soviet metal. In the restaurant we could get warm tea in the morning and evening and even toilet paper and bread were available.

On the next day we set the target to the 3615m high Taldyk pass and because I wanted to write my travelogue in an inspiring environment we agreed on me going my own speed.

The way up became steeper and steeper and I met some shephers and cowboys who brought down their animals for the winter that was not too far away any more.

Up on the pass it was too cold and windy to type anything on the keyboard and so I took out my Thermarest and sleeping bag and slept for an hour or two until the two French cyclists arrived.

Together we went down 200m and found a nice yurt to sleep in for the night.

 

The next morning should bring us to Sary Tash, but first I had my first puncture after more than 11000 km! But the hole was only small and so I only pumped up and we continued to Sary Tash.

There we met Claude and Nathalie from YakSite.org who got stolen during the night (the cycling shoes). Together we exchanged information and stories, had chai, cola and cookies and from Claude I got a replacement for my Marathon Plus (with more than 21000km lifetime), a Marathon XR.

We left Sary Tash and I decided to leave Goska and Herve and continue a bit faster towards the Chinese border. I pitched up my tent on 3500m that night and got some problems because the down sleeping bag touched the walls of the tent and lost some of its insulation function. So I got up early in the morning to get moving and therefore warm and took these wonderful pictures of the Pamirs and even managed to get me on the picture somehow (remember I only have a 10second timer!?).

After a Kyrgyz army post in the mountains the road got phenomenally good and so I arrived at the border during noon and had to wait 2,5 hours for the personel to come back – I changed my tire during that time and got my stuff dried.