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Surreal scenes of waterfalls, greenery, skies with fluffy clouds. In the foreground lions, maidens with milk jugs or kingfishers with freshly caught fish. These posters hang proudly in every café, hotel and restaurant. Today I dreamed about the cool water in the scene, tried to ignore the whoozy stomach and lethargy, and lay down to rest in front of the fan. Today was scorching.

Waterfall paradise

The sun was blazing down, the road rose and fell in an undulating, dry, barren landscape. The road surface was horrendous, and I felt nauseous. It was 12:30 and I pulled into the first café I saw and flaked out on the carpet couch. I couldn’t face anything to eat. I just sipped on a cold bottle of Coke.

Midday rest

After a couple of hours, I managed to put away an ice-cream and some salad, and didn’t feel so hot and lack-lustre. Then a commotion outside. A second cyclist – Maxime from France. A cycling partner for the day.

Then we ran into another 3 cyclists coming the other direction. We chatted in the shade of some trees, putting off the departure back into the heat.

Before the heat struck, it was a lovely descent from Boysun into a surreal landscape – big bumps in the landscape, and a mountain range of plates of rock sticking up from the plains at an obscure angle.

Bumpy landscape

Donkey

The road has everything

Tomorrow Tajikistan if I am up to leaving the hotel.