Day 143 (Uzbekistan): Buchara - nowhereland after Mobarak (it’s getting hot out there, so … )

daily distance: 118km
total distance: 8997km
riding time: 5-6h

I woke up in Feruz’s family home and felt at ease. I had slept sort unpeacefully though. I had dreamed about being in Germany and leaving for the trip. Everything had been a mess, the bike functioned only so-so and I remember the lens of my camera being completely smeared.

Waking up, the world was different. I continued sleeping in the fresh morning air outside of the house, being one of the first risers. At some point, Feruz’s father put a blanket on me, brought tea out and I fell back asleep with the smell of fresh green tea and a warm blanket around me.

We set out after a wonderful family breakfast and it of course took much longer than anticipated. But thanks to Feruz, we managed pretty much everything and he even went to Buchara with me despite him going into a different direction to be back with his wife and children in Tashkent. Thanks so much for everything Feruz, you made the days in Buchara so much more memorable than they would have been otherwise. Having been in Feruz’s hands also meant that I was loaded down with a lot of extra food weight, about 4kg of it plus a lot of water. Fresh and dried grapes, nuts, apricot seeds and tons of other goodies. This one - that’s a negative.

Leaving at just after noon I was smack in the middle of the hot period of the day. Buchara also happens to be a bit of an oasis, meaning I was in desert climate pretty soon and the temperatures reached 50C in the shade pretty quickly. I moved on making use of the tailwind that I finally caught on my road to Quarshi. I am choosing this detour deliberately, had hoped to not battle the wind for a day or so and that’s exactly what happened. The ride is longer and goes over some mountains, but I was dreading riding into the wind again and gave the longer way a shot.

The terrain was uneventful, I was able to cover miles and miles through calm-inducing areas (safe for the power plant and other not so pretty habitations). When it was time to find a place to sleep I found a shepherd who was more than happy to have me over. Together with some other farm workers we slept under the stars after a very light dinner. I was simply too spent to eat a lot and it would have been somewhat inappropriate to do so given the food that the others had available (dry bread soaked in water to make it eatable and water melon). This isn’t the right diet and it was too long a day to begin with, so we’ll see what happens.

I would like to say that I am roughing it on such days, but given that people like today’s hosts are doing this every day “roughing it” seems a bit out of place.