Police Escort

Camp near Kaka to Camp near Tejen
August 29th
119km (431m vertical...seems too high to me)

Last night, as soon as the sun went down, the insects came out. Huge ants and plenty of mosquitoes. They must be nocturnal. If I lived in this heat, I would be too. Very windy night and a brief rain shower too. With 1,000 year old ruins next to us made of mud and straw, this area clearly does not get much rain. Counting on this, riders were up in the middle of the night trying to find the rain flys for their tents.

Up at 5:30am and on the road by 6:45am to beat the heat. Thankfully, it was overcast all morning, so the sun was not a problem. Throw in flat roads (albeit a bit bumpy) and a tail wind, and we had another quick day. Averaged 27.3km/h (new record) and got to camp before noon.

For most of the ride, a police car with its lights on drove a few hundred meters in front of Nicole and I. Since we were the first to leave camp, he must have thought that we were the lead riders...even though Al and Nick passed us early in the morning. I was happy to have the escort though, since we didn't risk getting stopped at any of the police checkpoints, and we were able to follow him to tonight's bush camp.

Paul gave a talk about Turkmenistan tonight. He said its more liberal now than it was 8 years ago...hard to believe. Turkmenbashi, the former leader who named the city after himself, was a real character. He changed the names of the months to family member names among other strange acts.

A dump truck with a lot of hitchhikers:

I brake for camels...they are much bigger than they look:

Police escorting Nicole around a wide load:

More camels wandering around freely at the side of the road: