Rowena on the track to Suusamyr. The road to Bishkek goes over the mountains in the background.
From the yurt camp, we carried on down the wide Suusamyr valley until we were at the foot of the Tor Ashuu, the last big pass between us and Bisjkek. We had two or three days in hand, so we decided to turn off and visit Suusamyr village, about 15km down a track.
Suusamyr
In Suusamyr we stayed at the very comfortable homestay of Norimira & Kubanychbek Amankulov. Kubanychbek is highly a highly educated economist fron the soviet era (God knows what he does in Suusamyr, a small farming village) and the homestay seems to be his experiment in free market tourism. Norimira is a great cook. When we asked Kubanychbek how the Kyrgyz economy was doing, he mimed a man slowly waking up from a deep sleep.
Tim had come down with yet another bout of stomach trouble, so we just took it easy for a couple of nights, enjoying Norimira's homecooking.
Norimira & Kubanychbek Amankulov
Their Homestay
To Bishkek
After two nights in Suusamyr, we retraced our path back to the main road and set off to climb the Tor Ashuu. We camped about two thirds of the way up and reached the tunnel at the top the next day.
The road up the Tor Ashuu (It was alot steeper than it looks)
Rowena entering the tunnel
The tunnel was three kilometres long, narrow and dimly lit. Rowena founf the tunnel quite scary and when she emerged at the other end she had some rather worrying symptoms: a tightness across the chest and tingling down one side of her face, arms and legs. We figured it was either a mild stroke or an axiety attack brought on by the tunnel. Either way, we figured as she was still breathing, the best thing was to get down the pass as quickly as we could. However, worrying about Rowena's symptoms rather took the fun out of the spectacular descent.
The descent from the Tor Ashuu
On the descent
Less than 100km to Bishkek
A long descent down the beautiful Kara Balta canyon, finally brought us out onto the wide flat agricultural plain of northern Kyrgyzstan. Our last campsite was in a peaceful corner of field next to a cemetary. The next morning we set out for Bishkek. With the prospect of a proper hotel room and a hot shower at the other end, Rowena maintained an absolutely blistering pace for this last 70km and we arrived in Bishkek at around 1pm.
Setting off on the last day's pedalling
Rowena motoring towards Bishek
End of the tour Totally knackered in Ala Too Square, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
