City Tour and Back to Kazakhstan

This morning I got up at 7:30 so that I could have everything packed before breakfast at 8 o’clock. In Kazakhstan time — and therefore according to my usual rhythm — that was actually only 6:30 a.m., pretty early for a night owl like me. But my tour started at 9, and I probably needed another half hour by bus to get to the center of Bishkek.

The tour was very interesting and allowed me to learn quite a lot about Kyrgyzstan. For example, they are still very close to Russia. Lenin’s statue is still there; after independence it was merely moved from the central square in Bishkek to the backside of the building located there. I was also able to ask many questions and thereby begin to get a sense of the differences between Kyrgyz identity and the Kazakhs and Uzbeks. The tour was actually supposed to last two and a half hours, but it ended after not even one and a half. Considering that I still wanted to cycle a bit today, that suited me quite well.

By the time I got back to the hotel and had everything ready again, quite some time had passed. It was already 11:50 when I finally set off — although in Kazakhstan time it was only 10:50, and I’ve started later than that before.

And after a little more than 20 kilometers, I was back in Kazakhstan again. The ride there was somewhat annoying because a new road is being built and all traffic had to pass through the mud and dirt of a temporary route. Yesterday’s rain had softened some of the dirt on my bike, and I used the opportunity to finally clean it a little — but now another layer of grime immediately appeared. The rain from yesterday had not only softened the dirt on my bicycle, but also the unpaved roads themselves.

Crossing the border went smoothly. At first I went to the pedestrian section, but then I was told that I counted as a vehicle — well then. Exiting the country was no problem anyway, and during entry a dog merely sniffed around me a bit and that was it. I didn’t have to scan any bags or show anything else. The border officer could of course also see that I had only left Kazakhstan yesterday, maybe that helped a little.

Back in Kazakhstan, I knew that I had to cross a mountain pass. A few hundred meters of elevation gain were on the agenda. That would normally have been manageable, especially since the climb wasn’t particularly steep. But the wind was so unbelievably strong that I could barely move forward. At the only somewhat steeper section with a 6–7% gradient, I briefly got off the bike and positioned it sideways against the wind. Using all my strength, I could just barely hold onto it — and that wasn’t even a gust, it was constant wind.

It wasn’t quite that extreme everywhere, but the wind was incredibly persistent. I kept wondering when it would finally run out of energy. At an average speed of barely eight kilometers per hour, I patiently continued onward. As long as I stayed out of the red zone, everything would eventually be fine. At least the weather was perfect at just over 20 degrees Celsius, and the road itself was very pleasant to ride on. Still, it required a great deal of patience and endurance, because it took several hours until I finally reached the top.

But the descent afterward was wonderful. And my fear that I might once again fail to reach my destination before sunset slowly disappeared. Besides, I was about to change direction slightly, so I even thought I might finally get a tailwind!

That would probably have been too good to be true. Even after returning to the large highway toward Almaty, the wind was still blowing directly against me. Maybe slightly from the side now, but still so strong that it continued to slow me down considerably. At least the road now sloped gently downhill. So in the end I was still able to ride somewhat faster than I had initially feared.

In the end, I arrived almost exactly at 7 p.m. at a gas station where I planned to pitch my tent. I politely asked the attendant whether he minded, and he said no. When I started setting up the tent about 50 meters away from the station, he called out to me and told me to come closer instead. He said there were toilets here, as well as tea and food. So I pitched the tent directly behind the gas station as he had suggested. The free Wi-Fi from the station even reached all the way into the tent. And there were no party yurts anywhere in sight, so hopefully it wouldn’t be as bad as last time.

Afterward, I bought some tea and a few snacks in the gas station shop — I already had the rest of my dinner with me. Then the attendant opened his small container cabin next to the station and seemed to indicate that I should make myself comfortable there at the table with the light. Really such a nice guy — he clearly wanted me to feel comfortable, and I appreciated that very much. That way, I could go to sleep peacefully, knowing that I was welcome here.