The top of the pass was very close & was reached in 30 minutes. Up top there was a quintessentially Kyrgyz mountain scene, a couple of yurts in a pasture in which horses & cows grazed. The view from the pass, 2800m in altitude, was limited by the haze that has been around morning & afternoon every day that I've been in the country.
As usual we got plenty of attention from the locals who were fascinated by our bikes. We took a bunch of photos of them & were invited into a yurt for something to drink. We were sat in the guests' seat at the back of the yurt & given bowls of kymys, which I'm not sorry to say, is only found in Kyrgyzstan. They also served us some bread, homemade butter, a kind of spreadable cream & a delicious pie. All, except the kymys, was devoured with gusto. We finally left the yurt just before noon. We were escorted part of the way down the pass by a couple of kids riding their horses with an amazing control.
The way down from the pass was pretty awful & 11kph was the normal speed so many were the patches of loose gravel. Nick was having a bad day, first falling several times then spending the majority of the time fixing punctures in his rear wheel. We managed to reach a shady spot by a river where as soon as he fixed one puncture another would appear. When car stopped at the river & offered us, with a little prod from us, a lift to Kazarman we jumped at the chance.
The road to Kazarman was quite something. Beautiful but dry hills on either side of the road which went up & down over ridges, with the same awful surface that the pass we crossed earlier had. There wasn't much water around. We would have had a job to reach Kazarman on our bikes. We & our bikes emerged from the car totally covered in dust. I'm really looking forward to a shower.
Though Kazarman was only 60km from where we were picked up it was 7pm when we were dropped off, a 2 hour drive. Nick had to do another puncture repair while I went shopping for dinner. As it got dark we headed out of town to find a camping spot.
I cycled 26 km in 2 hours & 21 minutes
Total so far 9888 km in 144 days
GPS Coordinates of end point - N 41°24.737, E 73°59.383
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