Enough Mountains, Time for Oxygen

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Geo: 40.5151, 72.8083

Entered Kyrgyzstan via the mountain pass and then rapidly descended
down a bad road to the actual border gate where we were greeted with warm
smiles from the officials.
Lisa was suffering badly from the altitude and I think they took pity on us… after the normal array of questions… do you have any AK47's…no.. do you have any pistols… no… do you have any drugs…. No… a quick look into the canopy is confronting enough for any border official to just say… you can go with a quick flick of the hand.
Into Sary Tash to get some money changed where we also met a
Dutch and German couple who were riding bikes.. hit it off and went to their
guest house and had lunch…

Lisa was still crap so off we went and could not believe the
decent, I think after 2 hours of driving a constant 8% slope we finally hit
1500mtrs.. and the scenery had significantly improved. There were trees
and grass and of course lots of water in the rivers.
Camped low, however Lisa was still going downhill fast. So
next morning made a bee line for Tes Guest house in Osh where I got her a room
and she basically collapsed into bed.
I did a quick run around town to get some more money and some re-hydration stuff from the pharmacy and drinking water.. got some Norofloxin into her and things started to get better.
There were lots of biker overlanders there, even an Australian couple riding back home having finished working in Germany…
ironically nearly all the bikers were extremely envious of our vehicle and setup… kind of funny when all I could think about was it would be good to be
riding…. Especially when the Italians all started their bike before heading out… awesome sound and the normal pre-ride excitement.
Anyway I guess we will have to stick to our vehicle… after all it has heating and AC and lots of cooking stuff and all the other things bikers don't.
Stayed two nights and Lisa was now up and about feeling much better so we headed to Bishkek.

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Photos

Caretakers caravan
There is ours in the background under the trees

Signs, no english subtitles here
Menus, road signs and pretty much everything helpful looks like this. Darren hops out to ask if we can camp here for the night. Gets the nod and handshake so somewhere to stay

Comments

[David]

Could you not find a site a bit closer to the caretaker?

[Juliet]

How scary the altitude sickness must have been! Glad you are feeling better now. The mountains look so beautiful and serene but they obviously have their moments!! Take care.

[harryabroad]

I recon we could of got closer, this was the only stand of tree around the reservoir... and besides he had donkeys and kittens to pat.