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The Bicycle box

UZBEKISTAN

Mar
2004-09-14 15:10:54

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Tonight we will lock the bicycles to a tree and put all of our luggage in the tent.

(21-7-2003) If you want to stay out of the desert storms you need to set the alarm clock early. The wind starts every morning at around 11:00. What a beautiful route today, we have left the desert behind us and are now surrounded by cotton, cotton, and more cotton. Its quite late already and we are tired and hungry. The city is not really built for tourists so we must see if we can sleep at someone’s house. “Hotel?” we ask at the restaurant. Of course we know that there is no hotel and we try to look innocent. Yes, it works. We are offered to stay at the cook. What follows has all to do with ‘as long as they feel comfortable’. We get a whole bunch of hot water that is especially prepared for us as a shower (was it obvious...) and in the morning we share breakfast and the whole family waves goodbye when we leave the ‘city’ of Dashtabad.

(22-7-2003) “Can you see if something has gone loose or so at the back?”. I take a look. “Well, it seems more like a flat tire what you are feeling. Ha, 0-1 in the Muriel-Raymond flat-tire-competition.

Only in about one kilometer we see one tree that will bring us shade to fix the tire. 1-1, apparently I have a flat tire as well. With a pair of tongs I remove 17 thorns of 1cm long from the outer tube. Not a bad score for the Schwalbe tires, in each tire just one small puncture.

After repairing the tires we still have 20 km to go till Gullistan, according to the map. In Gullistan we planned a break for a day. The map we use is Hungarian which we bought in Amsterdam, but we are already there. We stay in a sport hotel next to a tennis court where once a year the national championships are held.

(24-7-2003) The road to Almaliq is a good quality tar road, better than the torn road cover of yesterday which was repaired in non-professional way and made us bicycle-sick, the variant ...