Stories behind the scenes…
Part 2 - stuck in Kyrgyzstan!
Unfortunately, there were no buses heading back to Osh from the border, so we hitched a lift with a truckie, paid, of course.
We ended up heading off quite late, so we spent the night sleeping on the floor in some random truck stop. It was a freezing, long night!
The next day was a bit of a challenge. We had to take a wild guess on where to jump out of the truck and start walking, or should I say, searching the side of the road. After around 5-hrs, we gave up!
We hitched a lift with another truck and made it to Osh late that night.
The next morning, we set off to the Australian Embassy (there wasn't an NZ one).
If I was traveling on my Australian p/p, I would have been able to get a new one that afternoon, but I was traveling on my NZ one... "Sorry, but you need to send your application off to England! It should take a round 10 days. "...noooooooo!! What are we going to do for 10-days in a country we had just spent 2 wks in?
We had 2 options; either mope around feeling sorry for ourselves or head off on another adventure!
Mmmmmm, let's go snowboarding.
On the way back to the homestay, we popped into the local police station to file a report for insurance. They take missing passports very seriously, so seriously, in fact, that they got the Kyrgyzstani FBI on the job and advertised it on the local t.v. .
Holy moly, this was pretty intense! They questioned everyone we had contact with!
An escape up into the mountains for a week was looking better by the day.
We spent a week staying in an old train carriage on a public ski field, which we had to ourselves pretty much as it was the beginning of the season.
We slept in Soviet Union army sleeping bags with dodgy, open wired heaters to try and keep warm. The liftie (Sasha) did recommend shots of vodka!
When I look back on these journeys, it's always a reminder to trust in the process, no matter how bad the situation looks!
Everything happens for a reason, and we are exactly where we need to be.
Stay close for the next adventure
