The headwind of the previous day hadn't gone away though was less strong. We broke camp as early as possible, thinking that the wind would get stronger. Our goal was to cross a 2900m pass & camp as close to the town of Kazarman. The longer term goal being to cross the Fergana mountain range & drop down to Osh before leaving the country for China.
We chatted through the morning about this & that, getting quite in-depth on the Argentinian financial crises of a few years ago (Nick's from Buenos Aires). Unfortunately neither of us paid much attention to the road & missed our turn off & not noticing the mistake until we reached the next town 15km later. This error & its correction cost us 1 1/2 hours & made the day very long.
The right track was found, & it turned out to be a horribly bumpy one. Our estimate of where we would reach was looking rather optimistic, especially since we'd planned to cross the pass in the end of the afternoon. Normally passes don't have too many camping opportunities once the real climbing had begun. So we had to be sure we'd have time to get over the pass & down the other side before sunset. We weren't sure but went anyway. The climb was a difficult one as it was reasonably steep at times & the surface was dirt & semi-packed gravel. Views on the way up were superb, of the desert-like Naryn valley & the desiccated hills around it. Time ran out when we were about an hour from the pass. Fortunately there was a flat spot suitable for camping a couple of hundred metres below the pass & much relieved we stopped.
I cycled 94 km in 8 hours & 39 minutes
Total so far 9862 km in 143 days
GPS Coordinates of end point - N 41°30.808, E 74°43.287
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