If Kazakhstan was Central Asia for beginners, Kyrgyzstan felt like it plunged me deep into chaos from the moment I stepped onto the near-melting runway.
With the flight from Almaty to Bishkek only 30 minutes, I naively expected more of the easy travel I’d enjoyed the preceding week. Instead, right from the off, I had that constant not-quite-sure-what’s-going-on feeling, one I’d long left behind in Africa. Between the struggle to find transport from the airport and a clumsy SIM card misunderstanding, I took a deep breath and reminded myself to be patient (not my strong suit).
I clambered into the hotel room overburdened with luggage and sweating profusely, congratulated myself on making it in one piece, and celebrated with a shower and an early night — convinced tomorrow I’d wake up refreshed and reset.
I woke with renewed energy and decided the sensible move was to build my bike before heading out to explore. To my horror, it was firmly stuck in the bike bag. A combination of user error and bad luck sent me off to find a bike shop, and once again play Yandex Go roulette on who’d transport my bike in their car.
After stalled conversations via Google Translate and issue after issue uncovered by Boris at the bike shop, I was fixed up and back on the road. Riding back to the hotel, I thought: what more could go wrong? Quite a lot, as it turns out.
As the city temperature soared to 37 degrees, I taxied to the main sites, saving myself for an evening city bike tour.
At the meeting point I was handed a bike of questionable quality — given the choice of no brakes or one brake, I went with one, so I wasn’t shocked when the rear hanger fell off mid-tour.
The tour was cancelled on the spot. But it brought the kind of local kindness I’d get used to by the end of the trip — a 19-year-old woman who generously shared what life in Kyrgyzstan looks like for her.
As we completed the last part of the tour on foot, despite the chaos I was starting to feel a curiosity about what I might further discover on the tour as we rolled out from Bishkek in the coming days. I laughed to myself the calamity of the bike tour and decided upon reflection the way my luck was panning out it was best I cancelled the paragliding trip I had booked for Monday!!
My last day of freedom before switching into tour mode was a trip to Ala Archa National Park — more outstanding nature, and a chance to acclimate to the heat and altitude.
My guide was on time, but as with everything in Central Asia so far, I had little idea what was actually happening — information-sharing hasn’t quite caught on here yet. First surprise: I had to pay not just my own entry but the guide’s and his trainee’s too. Not a huge expense, but not great value when the trainee was gassed stopping walking after 200 metres and had to wait on a rock for our return.
The guide himself wasn’t much keener on hiking, and clearly didn’t know the way to the waterfall despite insisting he’d been many times. We negotiated a turnaround point, and I happily chatted away while he practised his English on me.
Upon returning to the hotel I felt like I had done my part for the local tourism industry despite having no clue what was going on at any point through the day.
Now all that was left to do was more bike and bag faff and then get the wheels in motion with my fellow Sisters in the Wild.
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