May 10, 2014
As we were packing up in the morning, we were
sweating from the heat. We biked for 20 km when we got to Kulyab. It was very
much like an Afghan town you might see in the movies. Such a dirt and chaos, no
presence of driving rules, cars parked wherever, lots of honking, a lot of
vendors in every corner, etc.
We needed to change $100, so we went to a
"bank". The policeman at the entrance asked us what we wanted and
when we told him, he called someone out on the street and asked us to give him
the money so he could exchange! By then, some people had gathered around us, so
we didn't want the people to see or know that we were changing money; $100 is a
lot of money here. We told the guy we would be back later and went to a corner
to take out $100 from our bag. We didn't want them to see where we hide our
money. We went behind the bank to do so. And when we had our $100 in our
pocket, the guy showed up from the back door of the bank and asked us to do the
exchange. I knew the exchange rate so I
asked about the guy's rate. His rate was the same, so we did the exchange and
took off. On our way, we bought 6 boiled eggs from a vendor and had them
outside the town.
We resumed our paddling in a very steep road. It
was scorchingly hot. After an hour of cycling. We couldn't take the heat
anymore. It was 12:30 in a village when we took a three-hour break. Three hours
because it was impossible to bike in that heat. The villagers would pass by and
just say hi. Apparently, it was a no brainer why we had stopped by a grave to
seek refuge in the shade. After a couple of hours, a guy showed up and tried so
hard to communicate with us. I was in no mood to show that I knew Tajik
language, so I played dumb, but he had a big bottle of beer and had just
started to chat. After three hours, some clouds blocked the sun, so we took
off. We kept riding in a long steep road meandering up a mountain. At times, it
was so difficult to be on the bike that I walked my bike--little did I know
that I was over stretching my right calf. I realized it later at night when the
pain started.
At about 5 pm, we saw a boy riding a bicycle
with no front tire. I filmed him and asked him where we could find a shop. He
showed us the only shop (magazine, as they called it) in the area. We walked
our bike into a house and the "shop keeper" showed up with all her
goods: a plastic bag full of biscuits, chips, etc., and three bottles of
scented water, none of which we were interested in. I asked her if she had
bread, vegetables, eggs, rice, spaghetti, milk, etc. we walked out with a kilo
of rice, three onions, and a kilo of carrot.
According to the shop keeper, there was a spring
on top of the mountain where we could spend the night. It was very difficult to
reach the spring. Finally at 7 pm we
reached the spring when we did not have energy to even go 50 meters further.
We pitched up our tent, washed ourselves with
two litters of water, and made dinner: rice, boiled carrot, onion, and the
special source of energy by Kaveh. The sky was clear when we went to sleep, but
...
In the middle of night at about 2:30, I woke up
to the worst thunderstorm only second to what I had seen in Italy. It was
coming down like you wouldn't believe. We were rather close to a creak, so I
was afraid the flood would get us. I
could hear the water in the creak getting louder and louder. I got up, put on
my feather jacket and rain gear, got my money and passport--ready to scape. I
took a look outside the tent. A lot of water was running around and under the
tent. After two hours of non-stop storm, it quieted down and I could relax.
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| He Ran to Bring us Tea and Fresh Bread |
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| Second Round of Tea with Fresh Bread |
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