The Lazy Cherub Enigma: Birds of Prey don't eat Walnuts

Tuesday 16 September 2014

Birds of Prey don't eat Walnuts - But Kittens Do!

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves a mark on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully you leave something good behind”

- Anthony Bourdain

OMG! Writer’s block, bad internet and no caffeine make me a very grumpy blogger. I am leaving it up to Anthony for the existential musings of the trip. I’ve got enough of Ken’s pictures on this post to sustain your visual cortex for at least a week. Once I am sufficiently re-caffeinated I will be back to finer form. Ken is even talking about an upgrade to the Sofitel in Ashgabet so we can load up on lattes by the pool(s) and download podcasts. LOL! Grammar Nazis – you will just have to deal with this post. You DO NOT want to know what I went through to get it up!)

We have reached another milestone in our journey – completion of one more Silk Road country – Kyrgyzstan. I think I speak for everyone when I say it was a sad farewell. This is a country still unspoiled by tourists and outlandish Western standards. It even had a few good coffee shops! But what’s not to love about a country rich in nature, raw with beauty and filled with enough wild horses to fill endless boats…

Internet – and time – have been scarce. We left Bishkek for a few more nights camping and a clandestine stop over in the town of Arslanbob. According to our trip notes, this part of Kyrgyzstan had until recently been off limits to visitors due to ethnic tensions. Having now been there it is hard to imagine anyone being tense. This is the land of endless walnut forests and donkeys!! I half expected Shrek and a Dragon to be in town or, at the very least, a bevy of wood nymphs cavorting in the walnut groves. Arslanbob is in fact a tiny village on a mountainside that looks the same as it always has. I doubt much has changed here since around 1935. They do have electricity (barely!) but no Wi-Fi or cell signal. Can you believe it?!?! It was a slice of heaven.

Lodgings here are home stays – literal home stays. As in, a family takes you in and gives up their bedroom for you. It’s not a B & B it’s a real live home. Kids running around, Babushka yelling at them while she bakes bread, hawk and kitten playing on the deck, chickens and cows everywhere. Full-blown awesomeness.

The trip ended on a bit of a sad note. Said – the most amazing guide in the Universe – was called home early to take over for a sick colleague. It meant we had to say good-bye much sooner than we hoped and the parting was abrupt. In a rather unceremonious way we had to drop him off at the side of the road outside Osh. The truck barely came to a stopped and Said was gone. Walking down a stretch of dirty road with a backpack looking every bit a forlorn David Banner. Said is an amazing young man with so much to admire. He stayed in the same home stay as us in Arslanbob and while he was hiking I found a book he was reading on the steps. He learns English by picking up and squirreling away books he finds. This one – “The Great Game” is about the secret Russian/English war over domination of Central Asia. He had underlined certain words in thick pencil. This is Said’s “found poem”. It is, I believe, a fitting one to end this leg of the journey with.

Lice ascending fervently

Hastily recalled inflicted countryman

Wrest

Thirst.

Intervening scant complacency

Emboldened covetous spearhead

Carnage

Sway.

Ablest clandestine regimentals

Hindsight sidelines hawkishness

Compliant

Tedious.