Karakol to Almaty, (1/X); 2nd August
2nd August
Last day in Kyrgystan. As we were leaving the hotel, MayLyn tried to give some feedback to the owner about their small yappy dog, who bit her when opening the entrance door. The owner either didn’t understand or wasn’t particularly interested and just said thank you.
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We left around 10am, with about 80km to the border crossing which closed at 6pm. The route was generally flat apart from one short but very sharp uphill to our final pass of Kyrgystan. As we were climbing the pass a young Kyrgyz guy on horseback with his dog passed us and gave a cheery smile of support.
The views were very beautiful. As we are at a much lower altitude than a few days ago, there are a lot more alpine trees scattered along the hillside and of course many yurts.
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Karakol used to be a border/garrison town for the Russian empire. In this region there also seem to be more people who are of Russian descent — e.g the attendees at the Russian Orthodox Church, the hotel owners and the small shop 10km from the border I bought some drinks from.
About 8 km from the border a 4x4 with Russian plates, packed with trekking/ camping equipment pulled up in front of us. A middle aged man with a handlebar moustache got out, opened his boot, and presented MayLyn’s helmet to us. It must have dropped off when we stopped to give a cow an apple. He asked us where we were going and we said Almaty. He gestured to us that he would have given us a lift if his car wasn’t so full.
We got to the border with time to spare. A big guard about 190cm tall expressed an interest in the tandem. He asked if he could try it and of course we said yes. He did a loop around the courtyard, then asked his colleague with a rifle strapped around his shoulder if he wanted to ride as the stoker. The second guard got on the bike and they did another loop. I was happy to be able to liven up their day a bit.
About 5 km into Kazakhstan we met a Polish guy who was cycling from China back to Poland. He’d just started his trip three weeks ago and was fresh and excited. We sold him our remaining Kyrgyz Som and just asked him to transfer what he owed when he got signal.
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We then found a lovely campsite by a small stream, lower down from the road. A good campspot to finish the day.
It was bittersweet leaving Kyrgyzstan. Almost everyday was beautiful scenery, with plenty of livestock and other fauna and flora to appreciate. The mountain passes were challenging, but not too challenging that they made the ride up completely miserable. And the descents were glorious. I don’t know if we will get to ride in such a brilliant country for high mountains passes in this trip.
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