Day 36 Samarkand

Great breakfast in the hotel. Long time since i’ve had meusli and scrambled eggs with toast for brekkie. Looking forward to another of those tomorrow. With the laptop continuing to work I spend the morning plotting our route as far as Almaty and load the waypoints to the Garmin unit, while Dave works on his bike. Looking at the map renews the excitement I had when first planning this section. The Pamir highway is one of the top two highlights of this trip, the other being Mongolia. I can’t really believe we’re about to start it, it seems so soon, and I can’t wait to start climbing up through the mountains on the old silk road, to over 15000 feet. We’re currently at about 2300 feet, having been below sea level back in Turkmenistan. It’s going to be a challenging ride on poor roads, but thinking about the next 14 days ride has rekindled my enthusiasm. We find an internet cafe and try to research some of the upcoming locations for guesthouses or hotels, but the connection is so slow we don’t get very far. We do find some good reviews for a local restaurant not far from the hotel, and we try it for dinner. It’s ok, not great. A bit of a wind kicking up and clouds massing, which is something we haven’t seen for a while. Hoping we get good weather over the Pamirs!