It took ten hours, five rides, 1000 some, one argument with a driver who got unfriendly and a bus ride brought us back to Compass Hostel in Bishkek. my home away from home.
we woke up in the morning at the yurt camp near Tash-Rabat, Sultana who ran the yurt camp surprised us and sent her kids with a tray holding coffee and breakfast for us, didn’t ask for anything in return, was just spreading kindness and love, an act not uncommon in this country.
Shuva woke up and was packed and way before me, as usual, he finished his yoga session in the sun and started walking as I was taking a shower in the freezing river that ran through the valley.
I can’t prove it yet, but there is a clear natural phenomena where just as you are about to jump into freezing water the wind picks up and chills you to the bone.
I started walking north, following the dirt road looking for Shuva in front of me and waiting for a car to come from behind so I could start hitchhiking to Bishkek. i walked fast hoping to catch up with Shuve for an hour or two before hearing the first car coming from behind, group of three young men 2 from Kyrgyzstan and one from Tajikistan stopped and asked if i need a ride, i got in the car knowing Shuva is ahead of us and we should see him in the next few minutes, we drove for 5 minutes and no Shuva, 10 minutes and nothing, after 20 i got suspicious, ‘no way he got this far ahead’, I got out o the car and fund a spot on the grass looking up to the jagged rocks composing the walls of the valley took out my trusted ukulele and waited. finally Shuva caught up, surprised to see me and confused on how i passed him?
we continued and caught a ride with a man going to fill a big gas canister he uses for cooking in his yurt, and took us out the the paved road stretching back west and south around the mountains and into china through Torugart pass or east and north to through the villages around the At-Bashi mountain range, then Kylychbek who came back to the region visit but lives in LA where he is known as Kyle got us as far as the village of At-Bashi and 2 spanish tourists who decided on Kyrgyzstan as their latest destination, and looked for tips on where to go to outside of the popular tourist spots, got us as far as far as the city of Naryn, the Capital of Naryn district where we stopped and got something to eat and then caught a ride with a father and son making their way back to bishkek after visiting the family in Naryn for the weekend.
speaking some english and practicing our broken russian, trying to connect to the people that were kind enough to give us a ride and enjoy the land as we pass by.
Driving you see the land go by like in warp speed, almost too fast to process, sitting still in a car feels like the land is the one moving, unveiling in front and despairing behind, temporary and 2 dimensional.
Understanding why we walk, why we choose to be those who are moving and passing by as the world just is, dancing through it, diving into the depth of this life, the power and energy of these immovable living wonders, the mountains, rivers, animals, plants and people, always there and always changing, allowing us to feel each rock and blade of grass as we move slowly, understand the flow of nature and lucky enough to be a part of it all.
Exhausted and hungry, Shuva and I made it to Bishkek and left our gear In the hostel, hoping to eat something other than Kyrgyz food. We went to a Vietnamese restaurant, to be honest it would have probably been better to o stick with the local cuisine.
Back in the hostel I found the bag I left in Bishkek and 3 fresh pairs of Topo Athletic Teraventure shoes in green that arrived with a friend who flew in from New York, while I was on trail.
I slipped a pair on, it was Amazing, there’s nothing like the feel of a new pair of shoes, soft and pristine with that new shoe smell.
I gave thanks to my old pair, now full of holes and with no tread to speak on and laid them to rest.
Next was a hot shower!
The first one in about 2 weeks and it felt amazing, then some drinks and more food, meeting friends and getting back to the simple pleasures of society.
me and Shuva spent a few nights at Compass hostel and a few more with our good friend Dylan, and American guy who is living and studying in Bishkek and became a great friend, we went climbing and partying together, thankful for good friends and good company on this long road, i stayed in bishkek for the whole week, enjoying the side of me that wants to be surrounded by people.
After a few days Shuva had enough and left Bishkek to wait in Naryn, and i stayed a couple days longer to finish writing some of these posts I’m struggling to put out (and still am)
when my last day finally came I was ready.
I woke at 7Am, earlier then I would ever wake up on trail, I checked my gear and made sure I had all my maps going forward, locked up Dylan’s apartment behind me and got on to the street, i bought two new water bottles and some dental floss which i put it in my pocket and then got on a bus leaving the City, i needed to get out of the city where it should be much simpler to hitchhike from. and heeded east, first to the town of Tokmok in order to cross the border into Kazakhstan take a sharp U-turn back to Kyrgyzstan and so extend my visa for another 2 months, then south to Naryn and further south-west back to Tash Rabat to get back on trail.
But all that is still in the future, let’s go back a little, I got off the bus and decided to put the dental floss that was poking me through the pocket in my backpack. I reached into my pocket and my excitement left as I felt something other than floss…
I still had Dylan’s apartment keys with me, the only set of keys.
Nooooo
Few things bother me, having to backtrack is one of them, but sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man does, and the thing I have to do now is get back to bishkek.
A bus to bishkek, a marshutka to Dylan’s where I hid the Keys as I should have earlier, back again out of the city and continue to the border crossing in Tokmok
I got of at the Bazar in Tokmok and walked to the borderand walked across the border, when I got to the Kazakh side security they asked me where I plan to go in their country, they seemed so disappointed when I sayed I’m just here to extend my Kyrgyz Visa.
Still they were Kind enough to escort me out and around, pass the long line and straight through security back into Kyrgyzstan, where they had a larg sign witch explained all the different ways to bribe the coustomes officers, also that it is not allowed.
From Tokmok a truck picked me up and drove me for an hour or two, then a private car and another truck all the way to Naryn city, a step closer to the trail.
I’ve always been a man of drastic changes, zero to a hundred, climb mountains for days and weeks, then veg in the city and do almost nothing, and the transition is always slow, here Time moved slow again, the hostel in Naryn, the really good Nomad Cafe, the vegetable market and supermarket, where we got food to last the for the next three weeks on trai, and the Naryn CBT- I might have talked about the CBT (Community Based Tourism) before, it’s basically a collection of independent tourist centered service providers under the same organization but completely separate, some are only guesthouses, some cant speak english, some offer organized tours and then, above all, there is the Naryn CBT, run by Guliera With Ijan working like a champ, we sat it the Office for hours talking about the trail, the surrounding land and life, the CBT crew even agreed to take our supplies to the yurt camp near Kel-Suu about 5 days further up the road so we can have an easy start,
On our way out of Naryn we stopped at a small Cafe’ that wes just about to close and had a last supper, and here we go.
Leaving town is always hard, and always takes longer than expected, by the time we were done and ready the sun was gone and the stars were shining, for a second we floated the idea of one more night at in a bed at the hostel, but instantly put it aside knowing that would lead to a late morning, then late breakfast, that why not a bear and it’s already time for lunch, no! It’s time to go, now! We left town on foot, starting to walk on the dark road stretching to the southwest, wearing out flashlights backwards so any car that might pass by sees us, hopefully pull over, at least avoids hitting us.
A few minutes later a couple cars did stop, they were carrying hunters Going to a village halfway up the road and offered to get us with.
We got out near the village and went sleep in a tent in the field, after almost ten days in civilization, home sweet home.
