We are in Kirgilik again. We rode all the way back through the mountains.
We tried rescuing a sheep from drowning in the river, but the river was to fast. Poor sheep, sorry we couldn’t help you.
We nearly got hit by flying iron parts from a trucks propellor shaft that was broken.
We saw another crash where two trucks had hit each other frontal.
We had our second sandstorm, this time wind so strong against us, that we had to paddle downhill.
Saying goodby to the mountains was even harder than I thought. Just as we had reached the top of the pass again after cycling up in the rain, the sun came out and lifted the clouds above the roof of the world. We had an spectacular view on the highest mountains I’ve ever seen in my life. Over 7500 meters high, their tops enlightened by the sun they stood there as if they were trying to hold us back. I felt love and hate at the same moment. Hate, because we had been denied one of the most impressing experiences of our tour and maybe of our life. And that for, in our opinion, no reason.
Love because of the view on the mountains. I love the loneliness you can see everywhere. Unreachable places where no one ever has been before or ever will be. Places that are as natural as can be and thus show the real beauty of nature. So rough and brutal and unlivable, but also the save castle for what can survive there. Looking at this mountains is making me forget all stress in live, even that they won’t be reachable for us, not on this trip.
As the last snowy mountaintop disappears behind the passes horizon and the desert is getting closer again with its round sandy hills, the feeling of having lost something important still hangs in my throat like something sticky you can’t slick.
How long will it take me to get over it. How long until the desert can impress me with its beauty without making me feel bad about what I’ve missed in the mountains.
Probably until it is one hundred percent sure that we won’t get there.
Our last chance is to go to the visaoffice in Kirgilik and pray that they have some compassion with us.
So this morning we stood up with a feeling that somehow reminded me of being a child an having birthday. We didn’t know if we would get the present we longed for so much.
When Paul turned arround after talking to the guy in the office and shook his head, I felt relief.
Now it is definite, we won’t get a visa for Tibeb. As sad as it was to know that our last chance had passed, as glad was I to know how we would go on.
We did some shopping on the market where a young girl helped us finding what we needed. Then we took of, the direct way to Shanghai again, every kilometer we cycle now brings us closer to our final aim, the desert is waiting.
We have gathered some wood at the side of the road and then made a turn to the right. Now I sit in the wind shadow of my bike, I look around me and there is nothing to be seen, only sand. In the dust of the far distance I can imagine seeing the contours of the mountains in which we were yesterday, they are far gone already.
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