Rock climbing in Kyrgyzstan and multi day hiking in Uzbekistan (April 2025)

From Almaty, we went to the nice rock climbing area south of Bishkek we had visited the year before as well. Have a look on the crag.
Our friend Maria joined us and brought a new friend with her who tried rock climbing for the first time.
Together we had a lot of fun hanging around, climbing …
… and partying on a techno party in a nice, old bunker location.
From Bishkek we went into the direction of Osh to cross the border to Uzbekistan to then continue to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan (again), Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.
Sometimes the areas around rivers in the stan countries are irritating: for me rivers are mostly the nicest nature places but here often the rivers are used as trash dumps.
As always in Uzbekistan: the invasion of the Damas mini buses! They are everywhere.
Uzbekistan has an interesting car market which is dominated by Chevrolets produced in the country: have a look at more info on Reddit.
We went into the beautiful Uzbek mountains and started a two days hike.
The hike was beautiful with some river crossings and a bit of rock crawling.
Our destination was a beautiful waterfall.
And not far from the waterfall we found a nice camp spot for our tent.
The weather was super nice and it really felt like summer again!
The way back to Rosinante was mostly pathfinding in the labyrinth of goat trails.
Here are our tours on komoot: day one, day two.
We continued our way in the direction of Tajikistan.

One day in crazy Delhi, India (March 2025)

In March 2025, the travel route we had in mind was: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal. And after that destination unknown.
We organized everything. The Carnet de Passage (special customs document for our car which is necessary to enter certain countries with an own car) and the visa.
We tried to get a visa for India in Kyrgyzstan, but it was not possible. The only options left were: going to Germany and applying there in an Indian embassy or applying for an evisa online and flying to India to get the visa stamped in our passports.
Because getting the evisa stamped in our passports was not possible on the land borders and Rosinante was not used to flying, we decided to take the cheapest flight to Delhi and back to Almaty, Kazakhstan. Our ecological hearts were bleeding but we did not see another option.
Later we found out , that it’s most likely possible to get an Indian visa in Tajikistan…
No matter what, we made the best out of it and took a flight in the morning/ night of my birthday from Almaty to Delhi. We were tired and so we took a taxi to a park that looked nice on Google Maps.
The rollercoaster/ taxi ride was a good introduction to the traffic in Delhi. WTF. We had a lot of experience with traffic in a lot of different countries and I’d say we are pretty fast and active drivers who make use of mostly everything that’s allowed or tolerated in the traffic. But this was different, special, fast and tight. Often only a few centimeters were left between the cars, trucks, busses, tuktuks, people, cows, walls etc.
The park was a good place to ease our tired minds.
There, a lot of people did yoga, meditated and practiced breathing techniques. To me it felt nice that these practices were so much a part of the daily life of the Indians.
After breakfast, we did some sight seeing and I absolutely liked the style of the historical buildings.
The next method of transportation, we tried, was a tuk tuk. We got an electric one and had the most relaxed driver. After the taxi ride, that experience was very different. Less pushing. But of course vehicles, animals and humans were everywhere.
We got pretty tired and took a nap on a meadow near one of the historical buildings.
Everybody was super friendly and lovely. Several Indian groups wanted to take a selfie with us which we always find funny.
A nice home for one of the stray dogs.
One of the many tourist bazaars.
An ordinary shopping area in the old town.
Infinite small shops.
We liked the monkeys and the cows a lot.
Packed, tight corridors.
And sideways.
We decided to take a rigsha. Before we started, we showed the driver where we wanted to go because we were wondering if it wouldn’t be too far. About seven kilometers. He was fine with that.
In the car free area of old town, he pushed our rigsha through the tiniest free spots.
After some kilometers he got exhausted and driving on the bigger streets of Delhi, with big trucks and busses, felt more and more adventurous. Sometimes he spoke to other locals, told them where he was going and they showed him pretty much respect for his mission.
We asked if we should switch to a taxi, but he wanted to get going.
In the end, we made it, our driver was happy and I felt that he was kind of proud.
In a small Buddhist temple, I did a meditation and Racki relaxed a bit. After that we had dinner and took the metro to the airport.
Goodbye Delhi after 15 hours to get our visa stamped in our passports. It was a crazy short visit, but an interesting one as well.
Back in the airport of Almaty, Racki got a super discount on Baileys (her favorite drink). A successful end of our trip.

House and cat sitting while cleaning and maintaining Rosinante in Almaty Kazakhstan (March 20205)

We went back to Almaty (Kazakhstan) to take care of the house and cat of friends while they were in Germany for their holidays.
For us this was perfect to clean and maintain Rosinante’s camping cabin.
First of all we emptied the whole cabin and cleaned it a crazy lot. Some parts of the carpet we had to clean with bleach to remove moldy or strong dirt.
I was not a big fan of bleach but in the end, when living for so long in a small cabin, it is like a magical cleaner.
Again, we had a look at everything we had and sorted everything in a keep, maybe and a give away pile.
And we washed almost everything we had.
After the cleaning, we bought Rosinante a nice anti-rust treatment for most of the metal parts of the frame, rear bumper, wheel suspension etc.
This is her after cleaning .
And this with the new protection.
The guy who did it was a recommendation of the Startroopies (friends of ours) and we felt he did a good job for 400€.
After that we put everything back inside and it went very well. Letting go of some stuff absolutely helped. Especially because we wanted to keep the snowboards inside the driver’s cabin to protect them from the weather etc.
Our heating and air condition blower started to make disturbing noises and so we went to car city in Almaty to get a new one.
And the new and stronger coil springs for Rosinante’s rear suspension, which we had sent to a Kazakh friend, arrived and we mounted them by ourselves.
And the handling of Rosinante, which never had been bad, improved a lot.
After cleaning Rosinante, I had my teeth cleaned.
And Racki got some Hannibal Lector treatment.
This was the crazy cat we were sitting. She was super cute and very, very much attached to humans. Every morning at around 4 o’clock she came in our bed and woke us up by lying down around or on our heads. And if we ignored this, she started biting our feet until we fed her and let her out of the house.
One advantage of a house: an oven for casserole and french fries.
It was really nice to live in a house for these three weeks but living in Rosinante was always nicer.
The last day, we cleaned everything we used and when I was cleaning the shower bath, the holding for the shower gels fell off the wall and smashed the shower faucet.
I got pretty pissed. Especially because I knew our friends would come back the next day and I imagined that it would not be so nice to come home with a kid and having no shower or bath.
Because of the insurance, we did not try to repair it. In the end, we found a temporary solution in using a hose we were about to trash.
We did a very nice hike with Maria and her dog Vedinger.
The snow was pretty deep. Sometimes even waist deep and so we had to fight through it.
Vedinger had to fight as well but enjoyed it a lot.
And of course we went out with our friends.
One night we visited a “gay bar”. It was good fun.
And on one of our last nights in Almaty we had a proper farewell party.