(29.8.2012)
We made it, we have hiked about 20 km with our bikes, without road or any path, just “querfeldein”.
Three days ago the lonely nature was lying right in front of us. Hundreds of kilometers without civilization, we didn’t even know if there will be a road all the time. It turned out to be 160 km from which 25 km unridable landscape.
The first 145 km was a bumpy rocky road. Often we had to cross rivers, sometimes riding, sometimes pushing with shoes off. The road had obviously been built a long time ago, when the main road in the parallel valley did not yet exist. Now, that all the traffic goes another way the road is decaying. We saw many bridges on our way which just stood above the rivers, without roads leading to or away from them. Often the road had been washed away completely and taking a detour around muddy ground was unavoidable.
The last 20 km of the route we planned was the worst, but also the most adventurous. We had decided not to follow the path of the last days any more but to try hiking along a riverbed. We had experienced before that cycling close to a river is quite easy, even off-road the ” shore” of the river often formed a hard and easy rideable way. This time it was not the case. It was all sandy and pushing our bikes was enormously exhausting. After 3 hours we had only managed to push 4 km. since we are a little in a hurry again for we need to extend our visa soon, we had to find another solution. We tried connecting our bikes to a 4 wheel trailer we could pull behind us, but failed. So we found us another way.
Taking of the pedal-cranks and tying our hips to the sadle while walking with the bike in-between our legs made pulling much easier. Like this the bike didn’t slip sidewards anymore and our backs could relax for our hipps where pulling the bike. Although it worked better than before, we could still only make small steps for our heel would hit our rack-bags and our knee against our low rider bags when making to big steps. I felt a little like a prisoner that had escaped a desert prison and who’s ankles where chained together, in this case the bike was my chains.
But we made it. After about 20 km walking our bikes like this, we reached a little path which now hopefully will lead us back to the main road.
We both have the feeling that this adventure is one of the most impressive of our tour.
Since we are still in it and I don’t want to spend hours writing, this is a very quick blogpost, I will make a list of important events now.
- I have never felt so alone before, alone in a very positive way. No cars, no houses, no people, just nature, pure nature. It can make you feel very small.
-there is a lot of wildlife around here. Wild mules( looking a bit like zebras without stripes),
a lot of small, chinchilla-like animals, rabbits, wild yaks, deer, eagles, hundreds of vultures eating dead animals along our way, and huge marmots, as big as small dogs.
-a motorcycle just passed us by, on it two Tibetans wraped in thick traditional clothing . They ride up the steep road to the mountains where we came from. Rainy weather and cold winds accompanying them. Out of their HiFi (which is mounted on nearly every motorcycle around here) comes loud music. The song is: “vamos a la playa”,
“Vamos himalaya” would be more fitting.
-we have slept in a empty lodge in the mountains. Though we had to share the place with a fox, who had his cave in the lodge, we had a good night there. We found our selves extra lucky for it started raining and snowing real hard as soon as we had entered the lodge. Up in this heights a lodge is clearly better than a tent when the weather is that bad.
-we tried crossing the huge river in who’s riverbed we hiked, we aborted the action when I sank into muddy ground as deep as my hips.
-The lash night it was raining harder than ever before. We stills managed to cook on our oven. We sat inside while the oven fought against cooling raindrops just outside the tent. This morning it looked all rusty.
-We have crossed the steepest pass ever. I couldn’t ride it for my frontwheel constantly lifted of the ground and also the air was still to thin. It is a funny feeling when your legs still have power but your lungs deny service.
I hope I could give you a good picture of our last days like this, now I am back to enjoying nature:0)
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