Nov. 10- Secret Guests

Location: between Gulcho and Sary Tash, Kyrgyzstan.

Beautiful, rocky valley. Many small villages. We stopped to take a break at a bus stop and shared some walnuts with the people there. One lady gave us some apples in return. Further along we stopped at a road building site where James had found shelter last time he rode through here. Some of the guys who had met him then still worked there and they were happy to see him. One of them invited us to come stay at his house nearby. We accepted but as he walked us along the highway towards his house we noticed that he was actually very drunk. Shoot. What to do? I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable around him so we then politely tried to explain him that we would prefer to ride a bit farther. He really did not like that, making us even more uncomfortable. We hate being ungrateful but unfortunately we just had to get on our bikes and ride off. The guy was so upset that he tried to forcefully restrain us but he was just too unreasonable in his drunkeness for us to stay with him. We knew however that we needed to stop soon because we were now gaining elevation rapidly and we needed to stay below 2600 m today in order to avoid elevation sickness. In a small town just before the steep climb up to Taldyk pass (3619m) we approached a friendly looking house somewhat removed from the road to ask if we could camp nearby. A teenage boy saw us coming and before we could ask he waved us inside and said we could sleep here and take the bikes into the back room. We were shown into the kitchen for some tea. At one point the boy's phone rang. We could not understand anything of the conversation but afterwards both the boy and the mother seemed a bit nervous. Shortly after we were asked to move to the back room with our bikes because the father was coming home. They seemed to be in a hurry to get us out of the kitchen but ensured we still had hot tea and blankets to stay warm in the unheated room. After a while a plate with a heap of food was delivered and the boy stayed to share the meal with us. The mother and baby came to visit us a few times in the back room too. She and her son seemed to really like us and we got the impression that we were being hidded from this father person for some reason. It was quite bizzare but we slept well. In the morning the two of them very kindly and politely woke us when it was almost still dark and made us understand to quietly and quickly leave the house. They gestured that we can get coffee in town. We continued wondering about who this father might be and why we were hidden from him eventhough we were so readily invited to stay at the house.