Bike Packing Day 9: And it all goes tits up
Steve wakes feeling worse than ever – he’s got the runs in earnest now and Kati is feeling generally sore and fluey. I feel fine.
We can’t stay here. We’ll have to push on the 24km to Bayertov, where we know there’s a guest house. It’s the slowest ride of my life and Steve declares it to be the hardest 24km he’s ever ridden. He complains of terrible cramps and stops intermittently to visit the bushes. You’d swear he’s on his last legs! Kati is weak as a kitten and just manages to keep the pedals turning.
I still feel fine. I do my best to play the compassionate Florence Nightingale, but it doesn’t come naturally to me. I don’t tolerate weakness well, in myself or others. Why can’t you just quietly HTFU and get on with it, without all the attending drama? I think, but don’t say…
We find the guest house and after the usual rigmarole of tracking down the owner, checking in, ascertaining a price, etc, Steve declares he is going to absolutely die unless he gets a cold Coke NOW! I hop on my bike, find the local cafe, track down the owner to open up and buy a litre of Pepsi- the only cold facsimile I can find. He downs a mug-full, then passes out instantly, still in his cycling kit.
This is the first indoor plumbing we’ve encountered in Kyrgyzstan, other than the hotel in Bishkek, so it’s quite an occasion, but Steve is too sick to notice and Kati is too sick to figure out the hot water, so she ends up having a cold shower! “They haven’t fired up the donkey yet”, she declares. I check the boiler room. “It’s a geyser, not a donkey”. I turn the tap the other way and have a glorious hot shower. “Darn”, she declares. “I’ll just have to shower again in the morning”, then she takes 2 Myprodols and lies down. In an instant she is snoring away. I see to the piles of dirty laundry, then settle down for an afternoon of blogging. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
Around 18h00 Kati surfaces and we explore the town and go in search of a proper supermarket. We find many Russian relics as well as fresh fruit and vegetables vendors and a fairly well-stocked store and buy as much as we can reasonably carry for the next few days. We’ve given up on Kyrgyz wine- it’s sweet and awful!
On our return we ask the owner’s son what time we can expect dinner. We get a very strange response on the i-translate- something about returning again tomorrow? After much unsuccessful back & forth we realize that we will not be getting dinner, only breakfast at 08h00.
Wish I’d known, as I would’ve shopped earlier and cooked us something in the real kitchen for a change, instead of perched on a rock on the ground. Ah well, Steve’s not up to eating anyway (though he has finally surfaced and had a shower) and Kati is exhausted from our little outing and not really hungry, so it’s just as well.
I boil up some eggs and potatoes for us to take along tomorrow and eat 2 eggs and some bread for my dinner, then climb into bed and continue blogging into the night.
Let’s hope the patients are well again tomorrow!
