Life in Urkadurkastan...

It has been ten days since my last…. several things actually. Today I head home to Bishkek from site. We depart site at midday for the 5 to 6 drive that is anything but pleasant. There will be 4 of us in the car today, Dave, an Aussie from WA, Mal, another Aussie, from Melbourne, Sean from….oh shit! I am outnumbered 3;1… I am in for another 5 hours of kiwi bashing...bugger! There is only so much I can take before it wears me down, let’s hear it one more time for the Kiwi rugby league team…
Last blog I mentioned Simon the Cook from Manchester, the quintessential Pom, well if there ever was a clichéd Aussie yobbo its Sean. Sean has been here a couple of years now. He started on a 4 week on/off rotation but worked 4 on, 4 on, instead, greedy bugger, but then he has paid his house of in Aussie in those 2 years. Never short of a yarn and a great repository of Aussie sports trivia (and kiwi defeats) he can be pretty entertaining, although I would rather not be in his company when the kiwi bashing starts. Now that he has paid off his house, he is only waiting for his license suspension to end before he returns home….last time he was home, about a year ago, he had just got his license back….and this time he managed to keep hold of it for all of about a week…over the limits, both drink and speed at the same time, on a double demerit point Easter weekend will do that. 12 months is almost up... The other reason he is still here is to give his liver a hard earned rest.
Living at altitude has some peculiarities; you dehydrate fast and need to drink bulk water. And you dehydrate even faster on the way down to low altitude, if you are not aware/prepared, it can make the first beer a real killer. It would not be the first time I have crashed out with half a pint and a pounding head.
The other thing about living at altitude is that your red blood count goes up high and when you get down to low alt. with 50% more oxygen than you have had for some time , and with all those extra red blood cells to move the oxygen molecules around, when you get home to your wife after 10 days, it’s a case of Honey I’m home and I have lots of…..energy.

It will be to the security gate at 11.45 for the baggage x-ray, pat down for hidden 20kg bars of gold bullion we may have secreted away on our person, a sniff of our water bottles to make sure we are not trying to smuggle vodka out of the dry camp…? And it will be on the road to do battle with cattle, sheep goats, horses, chickens donkeys camels, suicidal Kyrgyz drivers, the roughest roads you will ever find….and 3 Aussies bent on kiwi baiting nonstop for 5 hours.