This morning not long after getting under way we passed through Kyzart Pass (at a modest 2650 meters), a picturesque spot situated among grass covered mountains. At the pass there were some primitive dwellings providing cafe services and a group of young children that greeted us warmly. On the descent we passed many herder camps most of which comprised both yurts and a soviet style caravan (for Aussies) or travel trailer (for our American friends); we even saw a yellow one.

Once out of the pass much of the day was spent following river valleys and passing through small rural villages. We saw many people collecting hay; cut with a scythe, lifted with a fork and carried either on animal drawn wagons or old trucks and/or trailers. The hay seems to get stored on the roof of barns.

An interesting feature of rural villages that finally dawned on us today is that most houses in these villages have running water; not through pipes and taps/faucets in the house but in the form of an irrigation canal or ditch that runs past the house. We saw many instances of people (almost always women) kneeling beside "their" canal washing pots, pans or something else. We also saw numerable instances of people collecting drinking water from the ubiquitous blue communal water pump/faucet.

Mid afternoon our route underwent a dramatic change as we left the broad rural valley of the Jumgal River for the steep gorge of the raging Kekemeren River. Driving the narrow shelf road of the gorge beside the fast flowing white capped Kekemeren was exciting. In fact we are both getting quite excited about traveling the Parmir Highway through the high mountains of Southern Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and that section of our route is now only a few days away. This afternoons route through the Kekemeren gorge was like a small preview of that coming experience.

We met some other travelers today. A lone South African motorcyclist living in Barhrain, a pair of motocyclists one from Italy and one from Norway, and we also passed two groups of bicyclists. We chatted with both groups of motorcyclists, comparing notes on where they had been and where they are going. We always find talking to other travelers spurs our enthusiasm.

As a point of interest, you will notice in the third photo above the sign advertising КЫМЫЗ - this is a sour tasting slighty alcholic drink made from fermented mares milk.


Our camp for the night was a flat rock strewn patch of ground on the inside of a curve in the Kekemeren River.