Today’s lesson: Fresh coconut, good. Sour coconut milk, not good.
Ending Point: N42°39 E77°12
Distance Traveled: 182.6 miles
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Judging by the crowd, we began our day in Bishkek much like everyone else: with a trip to the main bazaar. We were happier with our room choice for the previous night when we just had to walk a couple blocks to reach the bazaar and passed a bakery on the way, where Charla found a slice of breakfast honey-chocolate cake. As we walked around, Chase found his breakfast in the bazaar itself—meat on a stick and a fresh meat and potato samosa. While the food was great, the beverage was not; sour coconut milk is not a good pairing with fresh, delicious food. The good far out-weighed the bad in the bazaar, especially once Charla found some stylish leggings that put together the Union Jack and the Icelandic flag. She’s ready for some cooler temperatures once we get to high altitude in Russia. After a good morning in the market, we left town for the famed Lake Issyk Kul. We took a route that mixed directions from our paper map and Google Maps, being sure that we didn’t accidentally re-enter Kazakhstan and use the last of our available entries, and the drive was gorgeous. We passed between Kazakh and Kyrgyz mountains, over some small rivers, and through a sunflower field before rejoining the main road that took us through the mountain pass and on to the lake. We thought the somewhat heavy traffic on the still-under-construction road was somewhat normal until we arrived in the town of Bosteri and started looking for a place to stay. We checked out a few places as we searched for the one Rashid recommended, and we soon found out it was a holiday weekend in a lake-beach town at full capacity. Luckily, we had been trying the find a place while following a man in a Toyota who seemed to know what was going on. When we got a chance to talk to Mairambek, who had spent a year living in the US, he told us about his search for a room and kindly helped us find an apartment near the town market before finding his own. We were thankful once we settled in and then went for a walk around the neighborhood and down to the beach. Our walk back took us through a small market (tiny compared with the one we had experienced in the morning) where Charla picked up some fresh vegetables to add to dinner. Today’s lesson: Fresh coconut, good. Sour coconut milk, not good. Starting Point: N42°53 E74°36
Ending Point: N42°39 E77°12 Distance Traveled: 182.6 miles
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One of Iceland’s dirty little secrets is that the Reykjavík airport is located an hour and a half out of the city. They don’t tell you this when you book your 7:30AM international flight, which requires checking in at 5:30AM, which requires leaving the city at 4:00AM. Suffice to say, there wasn’t much time for sleep last night. Iceland was a spectacular starting point for our grand adventure because it was such an easy transition from Alaska. Rather than flying to Europe, we felt like we had just kept driving and discovered someplace we hadn’t visited before in Alaska. Iceland is a more expensive, European version of the Alaska we were used to. The climate, the topography, the 24-hour daylight; it all seemed very familiar. But, at the same time, it was slightly foreign to us. Europe was hanging in the air, and yet the ruggedness of the country made us feel at home. When we arrived in London, we were happy to get to visit with John, Chase’s friend from high school, for the evening. We had explored John’s neighborhood in the afternoon, but in the evening John’s very comfortable flat (combined with the early wake-up this morning) led to us falling asleep early watching Wimbledon. Editor’s note: Due to an unfortunate incident involving Chase’s cell phone and one of his cameras being left behind in one of London’s quintessential black taxis, we have no photos from today. We do have a Lost Property Enquiry filed with Transport for London, and are eagerly awaiting their response.
Editor's note from July 10th: We found ourselves back in London and back at John's flat, at which point we noticed a handwritten note on a pegboard in John's entryway that said, "If you left two mobile phones in a taxi, please call XXXXX-XXXXXX." Well, we said to ourselves that a cell phone and a camera could be interpreted as two mobile phones, so John called the number and lo and behold the electronics were being held by a very strange man in John's building! Apparently the driver found them and came back to the apartment building to drop them off. Success! And now we have photos to upload from the 27th for you! [Don't get too excited though, we just have transit photos as we lost the camera just after our arrival in London.] |