Police State

Ashgabat to Camp near Kaka
August 28th
124km (722m vertical...although that seems high to me!)

Back on the bike for the first time in 9 days. Was excited to start again and had trouble getting to sleep last night.

The local TV station was interviewing riders at the hotel before we left, and filming us as we rode out of town. Everyone tried to give sound bites that would not get them thrown in jail. I stayed away from the reporters. Max and Clive both rode in the van today after having severe stomach troubles last night. My stomach is feeling normal again...knock on wood.

Turkmenistan is the hottest country on the trip. Riding through the desert in the middle of August is tough. The Lonely Planet says that “Only the insane and the deeply unfortunate travel to Turkmenistan in August.” Perhaps we are both. I am really looking forward to some cooler temperatures as summer becomes fall and we climb to higher (cooler) altitudes. Until then, the goal is to leave first thing in the morning, ride quickly, get to camp ASAP, and then avoid the sun for the rest of the day.

This all went well for the first half of the ride. The road was very flat and Nicole and I pushed along quickly. Our average speed for the day was 27.1km/h, my the fastest day of the trip so far. We had a quick lunch around 9:45am and then hit the road again. 10km from lunch, some police had stopped Nick, Al, and Fred at the side of the road. For some reason, they wanted to collect all the riders together before allowing anyone to continue. Very frustrating! Nick had already been waiting for more than an hour when we arrived, and the last riders in the group would be another hour or more behind us. The heat of the day was just setting in and we were wasting time at the side of the road. Nicole called the tour leader, who came back and convinced the police to let us continue separately.

Other than this interruption, we made good time and got to the camp before 12:30pm. It was 109F when we arrived, and the temperature continued to rise until mid-afternoon. My feet must have become swollen in the heat, because they were aching in my shoes.

We are camped in the desert, beside a site of ancient ruins (from 300BC). There is no running water, so I had a baby-wipe bath in my tent. The only shade was from a shack, where most of the riders huddled all afternoon. I sat in my tent and read a book until dinner. The heat and bright sun gave me a headache. The sun finally went down at 7:30pm, and only then did the temperature really start to become comfortable.

Pretty boring road:

The mountains of Iran were to our right:

This is where we camped (you can see the big blue truck in the photo):

Me in the ruins as the sun went down: