To walk

After some weeks in Kyrgyzstan and hitchhiking through the country I started to feel tired of the long but boring conversations with my drivers, I had enough command of Russian and Kirguis to understand what they were saying, something that was both a blessing and a curse. My drivers were mostly, if not only, interested on the budget-side of my trip:

— How much money you have?

— You're a millionaire in disguise, aren't you?

— Is your country paying you to do this?

Having had to answer these kind of questions hundreds of times I decided to start walking more, only accepting lifts from time to time. But soon I started to like it and decided to go on walking only for some time.

I was in a town called in Kerben and it was May 9th, so the people around were celebrating the victory of the Soviets over the Nazis. And it was a special day for the people in that country: it is known that any Soviet soldier that wasn't Russian was immediately sent first on the line during the war, thus first to fall. In a way the Russians advanced over the corpses of their fellow Soviets.

Walked out of the town with a plan in mind, not that long nor hard but I knew what I wanted: to walk until the Chap-Chyma mountain pass (2810 mast.) that was at the same time the border with the next district: Chatcal. For what I've read it seemed to be a beautiful and not so visited area, 120 km separated me from my goal.

I walked out of Kerben, leaving past the flowers and celebration, my backpack was heavy and bulky due to filled-up journals and gifts from people I met on the road. Here and there people offered me a ride, but I politely declined, it was all too beautiful and peaceful to interrupt it with another conversation. I walked most of the day, there soft green hills with sheep grazing and transparent rivers flowing seemed to happen as frequently as bad mood and noise do in big cities. I felt like trapped inside a blissful fractal that kept repeating itself, every iteration more beautiful.

By the evening I reached a tiny village that was too much to go on walking indifferently, the trees and river playing around them were a clear invitation the spend the night there. I bought a lipioshka bread and some cookies, the guy at the tiny store looked at me with despair in his eyes: he knew that food wasn't going to be enough. I walked far from the road until I stumbled upon a restaurant with a big yard, asked the owner for a place for my tent but he invited me to one of the small wooden houses that they rented for tourists. I insisted I would be fine with my tent but they wouldn't budge: I was going to get the big bed.

It was the "victory day" so the people was happy and celebrating, I was invited to join few groups of people. We drank some beer and ate good food, the men and women sharing the meal were friendly and supportive. Glad to be there yet tired and hungry, I thought about walking: you get tired and miserable enough to appreciate what you have and everything becomes a gift to you.

On the morning I was given endless cups of coffee and a warm farewell. While walking, a white Mazda offered me a lift, there was a entire family in it. When I refused the man gave me his number and name, and invited me to meet him in a village on my way, Aktam.

— You will reach it at night, call me when there

But one and a half hours later I was there, I was surprised. "Is there a second village with the same name?" But I was at the right place, he was not so good measuring distances.

I went to his house, a big wooden house surrounded by huge trees that fell into oblivion when his father moved away. I had lunch with them and visited his father in the hospital, we surrounded the sick man and exchanged greetings and small talk as far as my Russian could do. At night they left and found myself alone in that big house, there were noises hauting all the house, a dog appeared out of nowhere and the wind did its part too to tell me I wasn't that welcomed there.

When I woke up I started to pack my stuff, that's the traveler's way to politely explain to your host that you're leaving.

— You should stay, we will make plov — he commanded.

I nodded and not so long after we started the fire and with the kazon (massive cooking pot) on top of it we cooked plov or osh, an oily and spicy rice simmered in a stew with mutton, carrots and others. After lunch, Tilek (my host) got creative and grinning like a child and pulling me apart told me:

—I want to play a joke to my sister, we'll tell her you're my father's son. He met your mother while in Saint Petersburg, on the 90s when he was living there for work and your mom went there to.. to..

— To study Russian? -- I asked both surprised but agreeing to do it.

— Yes, yes! That's it, to study Russian, that's genius. -- he said laughing and shaking happily.

Soon after Tilek told everybody about the joke, but to one of his sisters. So with all the family but the old man (my dad) on the car, we picked up the victim and while slowly riding through the village Tilek introduced me and explained her I was there for a visit, but not only that.

— What else? What are you doing here? -- she asked me, smiling

— I came here to see my dad

— Oh really? Does he live here?

— Yes, he's at the hospital -- I said, rather sad, looking down from the backseat

She looked at his brother, Tilek, that had just stopped the car. He had the eyes of someone faced with the inevitable truth.

— Who's your father? -- she asked with a sharp cry of pain

— My father is yours. He met my mother in Peter 23 years ago when she was there for her studies. I came here to met him, to meet Tilek, and you.

She turned back to her seat, looked to the empty street ahead of her, then to her brother and back to me.

— But.. but how? - she asked almost without voice and tear in her eyes.

The pain was intense enough to make Tilek stop the joke. He hugged his sister comforting her: the bastard was nothing but a lost traveler that he was hosting, she didn't feel way safer after he said that.

We dropped her at her house, she was still a bit shocked but waved goodbye politely, even if I knew she was both angry and sad because she had just lost a little brother.

Spent the next two days walking by the river, following the road. Now the cars disturbed me, I felt uneasy next to them. I had waited for them before now I wanted them far from me. While crunching gravel under my feet I found tons of wonders by the side of the road: a useful cap, broken phones, old empty purses and so on. Some people kept offering rides I declined, one just passed while handing me a bottle of Coke and saying:

— Кирги хорошие люди (Kirguis are good people)

The weight of my backpack was annoying and it made me look down when I wanted to look up the sky.

While walking in a small village a man invited me in, it was already seven so I accepted. We had some tea and enjoyed a peaceful and fluent conversation with his family. I wanted a place for my tent to not to disturb the house, but as soon as I tried to leave I was taken to a room with a comfortable bed made of mattresses on the ground.

Early on the morning I was walking again. The nature on that area was amazing, above all the river was flowing just next to the road, just next to me. The wind and the river were my friends, both helping me to make the heat less disturbing.

The road was quite irregular and I had to go uphill and downhill infinite times. Again I regreted to have that much in my backpack, I felt that the amount of things that you carry is somehow the measurement of what's missing inside. Someone more mature and ready to take it "as it is" will carry less. But I was not keen on giving away the memories of my trip: a Kirguis hat, a Kirguis felt coat, a Pamirian hat, coins, my termus, another gifts and so on. I didn't need those stuff to eat or to sleep, but I wanted them as a living memory, so when back in home I could travel again looking at them.

The area I was walking by is really rich in gold, companies from different parts of the world had settled down there and work to get the precious metals out of the mountains. I walked next to a Chinese company and the workers, thrilled to see a different face, invited me to eat something by making chopsticks with their index and middle fingers. As soon as I entered the compound they greeted me happily, but a bulky guard rushed to me almost shouting, asking me to leave. The Chinese workers insisted with their finger-chopsticks, eating some good air with them in order to tell the bouncer that I was there to eat. "Are you hungry?" -- asked the Kirguis guy letting me in the kitchen.

They gave a me a huge dish with rice and spicy meat, not the best when you're thirsty as I was but anyway was great dinner.

— Come to my office to talk after eating -- the guard said.

I nodded while both suffering and devouring the spicy food and fearing an interrogation afterwards.

While I tried to talk with the workers it was a difficult task, not only because of the language but because a very different mindset. The communication paradigm was cracked, the language bridge was missing, but not the human one. Something universal enough was bonding us in order to share that meal and chat together.

The guard didn't interrogate me, he was just interested on my trip and in Argentina. He was kirguis so we talked in russian and kirguis, he invited me to sleep there but I refused, didn't want to cause any trouble.

At 7 o'clock, I packed my tent next to the river and I kept walking in the gravel road, it was hot and tired. At one point I found myself eating snow, found it quite refreshing and amusing. I had only half bread in my backpack and wanted to keep it for later.

In front of me snow-capped and big mountains, to my left a green and tree lined slope next to the river, to my right sharp, dry and red rocks. If the universe comes in triads that was mine at the moment.

I reached the serpentine that goes up to the moutain pass, I looked up to the dry and dirty snake. Every step was painful, the 16 kilograms on my backpack tearing apart weren't helping. Sometimes a little rock was able to find the right corner of my boot to make me lose my grip and twist my ancle, no enemy is small. 

I filled my camel bag with the springs flowing next to the road, the water was almost crystal clear. I was concerned about only one thing: I had noticed that my pee was way darker than usual. When walking the last kilometers it was bloody dark, I didn't know what to think: dehydrated maybe?

When going up a steep part of the road my arm took control of my body and waved a car that was coming. The tiredness of walking over 100 kilometers as stronger than me and made me sit in that car. I didn't know how far was the pass. My grief was unbearable when we reached the pass, just three kilometers away, just that to reach it and I had failed. 

I just looked at the snowed mountains passing by, my driver dropped me 40 kilometers later. It was a small town where the spring had already begun. My priority there was to get in touch with my family (one week without saying a word) and so I did after being invited to drink tea in the house of a sailor that served in the army in places like South Africa and Singapore, he was proud of it and showed me all his badges.

I went out of the village and put my tent in a field, the family that owned the place invited me for a dinner, the guy at the house had two wives (both living in that house with their own children as well).

I walked and hitchhiked village after village. My next aim was the Kara-buura pass, the road going there was closed due to snow and landslides, felt like a small redemptiom over the last failure. 

On the way I faced some drunkards and pushy taxi drivers I had to almost fight with after they demanded money when I made clear from the beggining I had no way to pay them. With me I had only ninety soms (something like 1.5 USD) and even them some of the drivers tried to convice me to give that away. One of them accepted to give me a free lift and after dropping me waved down a Sprinter van that was full with worker from Gold China. Dirty and sweaty I sat next to fancy, well-shaven Chinese men.

They left me in the last village before nowhere: Chakma Suu. The only of worker with a suit went out and walked with me, he invited me to his house and showed me his couch where I could put my bones to rest.

At seven in the morning my host took me to a friend's house. For what? To give me breakfast. Yes, he took me somewhere else to allow me to go walking in a good shape. Sometimes human kindness knows no limits. My new hosts invited me in and started a feast immediately: every possible dairy product was there, the tvorog (quark) was specially delicious. Another neighbor came in, sat next to me, ate some soup and left, that's how simple was there to share the table.

Left the house only with hope, an extra bread on my bag and snow on the horizon. Walked only two kilometres until a truck picked me up and took me five kilometres ahead. A big red truck cracked the road at the distance, I have seen it before, it was a massive Chinese one. I smiled and extended my thumb. They stopped, more surprised than me. Climbed one of the huge tires and jumped over the immense steel bones that were carrying up to the mines.

I felt free, surrounded by snowed mountains and people I couldn't understand. They had come here to die trying to send money back home, those workers didn't have any documents and where they fell they stayed, forever. One way trip. 

Fifteen kilometres later all the crew abroad greeted me and continued across an incredibly hostile landscape. Soon I found the first of many landslides, just past that first landslide everything changed, I found no one and nothing in the following seven hours of walking.

The place looked like no man's land, three meter snow walls, more and more landslides, rocks, trees and a perfect silence; the ultimate solitude. Seemed like a place that the man no longer dread to walk by or like a dystopian future of an already deserted past.

Up and down, back and forth to reach the long waited pass. Every drop of water coming from my camel back was a pleasure, the paradise itself, I remember that every time I drank some I looked to the blue sky gratefully, next to me a crystal clear spring running under the snow.

Soon I reached a section of the road where everything was snow, I laughed in amazement.

— I doubt they will ever use again this road — I thought climbing the white mountain.

After seven hours of failed shortcuts, intimidating landscapes and kilometres of nothing I got closer to the mountain pass.

And finally, there it was, simple and flat the Kara-buura mountain pass.

I had almost no time to rest when I saw a huge storm approaching, an endless winding road was waiting me to go down. Immediately after I crossed the pass started to rain and hail, I walked down as fast as possible looking in every possible direction to avoid any loose rock falling over my poor head.

Soon after the slopes became less narrow and covered in grass, so I cutted the serpentine through, dangerously trotting down the slopes. I reached the river exhausted, dirty and glad, drank some water from tahe clear and cold river and headed to the only house in the area.

I was at the entrance of a gold company, Vertex. Two guards in military uniform approached me:

— Where are you from? Where are you going?

— Argentina. To Talas. How far is the next town?

— Fifty kilometers

— Oh. Nothing in between, right? — I said sad and miserable

— Nothing

Tired and sore, I started to walk, when one of them stopped me:

— Wait! Maybe you can sit for a bit — pointing to a wooden bench.

When I tried to start again (I had only half bread in my rucksack) they invited me in and we had a delicious meal based on potatoes and meat, just mixed potatoes and meat but in that state anything would have tasted wonderful. Central Asians use to drink tea with every meal, that tea, the magic tea always wipes away all the bad spirits with a tender touch.

The night came by and asked for a place for my tent, while talking me to the back of the camp one of them gave a big piece of halva and one of sala (pork meat). 

— But why pork here? Isn't it forbidden for you? – I asked in amazement.

— Yes, but you know, here there's a lot of Russians and they like to have some when drinking vodka. 

Accepted the gift and also the place they offered to sleep.

— You like sauna and massage? – one of them asked with a strange tone while showing me a container.

— I do

— But do you have money? You have to give some to the girls..

As soon as I entered the container-house I saw the two women, over forty, both wearing caps and friendly but whose profession was never clear. I waved at them and went to bed, it was a cold night, my sleeping bag got wet but didn't care much. After the pass everything was supposed to be easier, I was way over my mission and slept happily, cold but in a gold mine. Nothing that common nowadays.