Tag: friends

Back to Kyrgyzstan, Song Kul, riding horses and donkeys and the magical box (August 2024)

We went back to Kyrgyzstan and met a gang of “fat ass sheeps”. We call them that way because on their back sides, they have additional “fat sacks” like camels have.
Beautiful Kyrgyzstan.
We did an interesting hike on which we depend on mostly cow trails. They did a pretty good job preparing a trail through the bushes and making the slopes a bit more walkable.
Here is our hike on Komoot.
When I was about to take off my shoes for a river crossing, a nice local came with his horse and brought me across the river.
We installed the magical box. It was the lid of Racki’s old gemmy box which she has had since she was a child. The magical box provides electricity and looks nice.
And of course we played a lot of Spirit Island. My favorite board game.
And we tried to rescue this little fellow. He was suffering under the changing temperatures etc.
Next stop was the famous Song Kul.
We found a nice camp spot next to the water, did our laundry and our other daily routines.
Dino had a good look at the lake.
♥️
Which was sometimes calm and sometimes pretty stormy.
On a stormy day two young German guys on motorcycles came along and we had a good talk.
After the Song Kul we went down the mountains again.
We drove a whole lot of dirt roads in the direction of Osh.
One day we parked in the line of a crazy thunderstorm. Maybe it was the most powerful one I’ve ever witnessed. We had to very quickly close Rosinante’s roof and the whole car was shaking like crazy. In the photo you see the big power lines pushed by the storm in a horizontal position.
Close to Osh, we met with Simon and planned our route on the famous Pamir Highway.
Some cleaning.
And riding a donkey.
These donkeys. We did see them a lot ridden by elderly men and that looked like they were in a cartoon because the riders feet are nearly touching the ground.
I did admire how the locals were packing their cars but this one was pretty close to flipping over. In the photo he had to go up a bumpy track, the whole transporter was leaning to the left and the front axle was sometimes lifting up a bit 🙄

Getting crazy about a road in Uzbekistan and, sight-seeing and awesome nature (June, July 2024)

From Kazakhstan we took the border crossing to Uzbekistan. The road after the crossing was the worst we’ve ever experienced. This photo shows the new road which was still in construction. But we illegally crossed from the old, broken road to this one because the old one was so crazy. Before we tried to go next to the broken road through the dirt and dust but that worked not as good as well.
On iOverlander there are reports of travelers going ten kilometers per hour on 250km of distance. We could go much faster but still it was crazy. I got really mad about this. And it’s weird: on an off-road track I don’t mind going slow, but on this road… The potholes were so deep, big and there were so many. And there were trucks. A lot. They had to go really slow, nearly stopping. If the locals go like that, you know about the conditions of a road. We’ve never seen so many cars broken at the side of the road.
At some point I started just acceleration and braking hard because I just wanted to pass this road.
Didn’t make sense but… fuck it!
But of course the locals knew how to pack their stuff.
We skipped the Aral Sea because we didn’t want to make the detour and went to visit an old sand stone fortress.
It looked interesting how the sand stone “melted” over the years.
Some proper sight-seeing in Buchara.
I liked these wooden pillars.
Buchara is a crazy tourist town.
Racki got a new haircut.
We met again friends we got to know before in Georgia and had a great time together.
Together we did some maintenance on their bikes and we crafted some custom made spare parts. On the road we learn a lot about repairing and crafting.
These little vans are the most common cars in Uzbekistan. They are like ants. Thousands and everywhere.
We found an amazing camp spot.
And parked as accurate as ever.
Met a lot of super friendly people.
Racki crafted jewelry and other stuff.
We had our signature meal: selfmade Pampe (kind of spread) with Lavash (thin bread/ wraps).
We went there primarily because we wanted to try the climbing crag there but the crag was just a small rock and the routes were nothing like the climbing routes I did before.
The stone was loose, the distances between the bolts were huge and the positioning of the bolts did mostly not make any sense for me. When falling these bolts would not really do there job.
I did not really enjoy climbing there. It was more a practicing rock for alpinism.
But the scenery!
It was super beautiful and we went for a nice hike/ mountaineering tour.
At one point we had to climb a few meters high, very steep slope (not on the photo). The rock was loose and sometimes crumpling under our hands an shoes. I was not used to this and did not feel so good about it.
Under the slope were a few rocks and then a hundreds of meters long steep snow and ice covered slope. A nice place to fall, roll and slide like shit… But despite my worries, we made it easily. Still it was kind of a near death experience for me. Racki did it in proper Racki-style and did not fear anything.
The view and the colors!
At the summit.
🥳
🐎 Here is this tour in Komoot.

Leaving the snow, moving together, healing, fixing and improving Rosinante in Georgia (March, April 2024)

In Gudauri, my ear started hurting a lot. It was super confusing and partly depressing because especially sounds like loud laughter and voices became very hurtful for me and so it got partly painful to hang around with others.
So I decided to drive down to Tbilisi to have my ear checked in a clinic. It went all super good, friendly and pretty cheap (about 70€ for two diagnoses and medicine). A week later my ear was already very good again.
In Tbilisi, I met Whoopie, Paul and Adrian with his dog in a parking lot and together we had a lot of fun and tried to get rid of a squeaking noise that only occurred when turning the steering wheel of Rosinante.
We did not manage to locate the origin of the squeaking noise but found a part of the front wheel suspension that got loose and we fixed that.
Back in Gudauri, Racki and I started to prepare our leaving of the Pappartment.
After months staying on the same spot, we had to tow Thor through the mud.
Back in Tbilisi, we met Whoopie at her work place and more friends and had a great time.
Racki and I had decided to permanently live and travel together and now it was time to actually move together in one car, Rosinante. I was super happy and loved the idea that we’ll stay together. And I was very curious of the adventures we would experience and how our relationship would develop.
We got rid of a whole lot of stuff. Especially Racki gave away so many things and clothes… It was crazy.  Especially because for her most of her things are reminders of special friends and occasions.
We cleaned and prepared Thor for sale and advertised him in German car markets. Whoopie’s chefs (who have a caravan rental) were very interested in buying him but one of their workers said that there was a law in Georgia that prohibits the import of cars older than ten years.
Ogri our temporary oger-dog-friend.
We upgraded our lifepo4 battery with an automated heating system.
And improved our electricity system.
Rosinante looked crazy in the process.
When I brought Rosinante to a Toyota garage in Tbilisi, they found the issue that caused the squeaking noise: ball joints that I had exchanged on Cyprus. I should not have them exchanged back then but at that time I was not so familiar with all the car topics and believed more in the mechanics.
And we found some bushings that needed to be exchanged. That was a pretty clear case.