Top of the World

July 28, Osh, Kyrgyrstan

In the year 2000, Osh, Kyrgyrstan celebrated its 3000^th anniversary. Not that they updated the paving or sewer system or anything since founding, but they had a celebration of some sort, I heard. This was one of the big stops on the Silk Road. To get here, I had to take a taxi over the top of the world. The taxi was not really a taxi. It was a guy and his brother driving their own car from Bishkek who wanted somebody else to pay for the gas. So, when I showed up at the taxi/minibus station, a guy grabbed me and started negotiating on a ride. He walked me around for more than 200 meters before we settled on the price for the ride, and I walked in and got in the car.

The ride was quite impressive, over three passes 11,000 feet or higher (with horses, yurts, and all the stuff you see in the pictures of Central Asia) before settling into a long, hot dry canyon area (five Soviet dams collecting miles and miles of hydroelectric capacity), followed by five hours through an agricultural flatlands (where corn and all tons of melons were in evidence). Think of going over the Tioga pass a few times, dropping into a road along Lake Mead and the Nevada desert, followed by a few hours through California's Central Valley (although a little messier than the Central Valley). Except for the mountains, it was hot and dry.

The brothers decided not to go all the way to Osh. They had stopped at their own home about an hour east of Osh, where we unloaded the car and visited with mom (who shared bread and a gooey butter, and we would have had tea, but wanted to press on) and some cousins and such. So, since we had made the deal to get to Osh, one of the brothers and dad (Abdul Ahmillah, he introduced himself) drove us back to the main road, hailed another taxi (which was not really a taxi, either), slipped the driver some money, and sent me and the mother/daughter who was sharing my ride the rest of the way. I found a room real quick, and had a great evening drinking a beer with a couple of Polish guys who were going trekking in the Pamir Valley.