the rain the night before). We were
so close to the border we could al-
most taste Kyrgyzstan’s famous horse
milk. But with a destroyed frame, a
bike that hated us, a slow puncture,
clogged jets and no rear suspension,
we had a way to go.
Broken or not, none of that
stopped it from being the most
memorable, fun and visceral rides
of our lives, and nothing could take
the smiles of our faces. Overloaded,
covered in mud and sweat, we gave
each other one more nod and wob-
bled down the mountain in search of
the border, civilization … and a good
mechanic.
The sun dipped behind the horizon
and the cold set in as we sat in our
own little yurt overlooking Song Kol
Lake in Kyrgyzstan three weeks later.
A nomad with a bucket of manure
strolled in, shovelled dung into an al-
ready blazing metal oven, wished us
goodnight and rolled the sheepskin
door down behind him as he left. As
the room filled with heat, we sat back
in our bed and watched the orange
glow flicker.
The mad month in Tajikistan, all
the breaking down, hours fixing
the bike on the roadside, non-stop
off-roading, arguing with border
guards about lost paperwork, the
TRAVERSE 73
two-week wait in Osh for a new shock
absorber to be sent from the UK … all
the troubles of the last two months
dissolved in the fire and disappeared
with the smoke into the Kyrgyz sky.
We were where we wanted to be: in
a yurt, in the middle of nowhere with
nothing but greenery and horses -
and it was spectacular. As soon as the
sun woke up we swapped two wheels
for four legs, rented a couple of
horses (AU$5.00 per hour) and set off
alone into the hills for a real taste of
what it must have been like traversing
the Silk Road through Kyrgyzstan’s
nomad land.
As we crested peaks and gazed