I took a shower in a very makeshift shower...I've never seen anything quite like it, but I managed to get some hot water going and was able to get the grime off from the day before. Dave manages a hot shower but when Cadence goes to use it she has problems, luckily there is a spout and she's relatively short so she manages to get some hot water by ducking under the water. Brian mentions later that he has to do the same in his bathroom. Very makeshift! I wish I'd taken a photo of the plumbing.
Cadence was feeling better today, and I decided to give her Gravol right away so that it had time to take effect before we got in the car. It was another long drive today, so best if we didn't have more puking!
Once we were packed up we headed over to the main house for breakfast. The breakfast was good but most of us were feeling a bit trepidatious about what we were eating this morning. They served nice hot tea though and even snickers bars, so those seemed like safe options! haha. The water we have found to be really clean and good throughout the trip.
Once we are all paid up we hit the road. It's funny as Zafar was asking how we booked everything and we told him booking.com and apparently one of the things that he works with people in the region on is how to put their place up on booking.com. I tell him that it had been hard to find accommodation in these regions that I wanted to visit and I certainly would have welcomed more options, but there just weren't any.
We hit the road and we have to backtrack quite a ways...down the long steep gravel/dirt road and back out to the highway. Somehow moving from crappy road to better and better roads makes us all feel a little better than last night!
We stop at the lake and decide to hike out to the waterfall and back. Its a nice walk along the river and the waterfall is pretty neat. Its hot out though - and we are all feeling a bit sluggish today.
We load back into the van after our walk and off we go. We are on our way to Dushanbe where we will spend the night before we fly out to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan tomorrow.
The highway is pretty good, its winding, but so far Cadence is surviving! We go through a tunnel at one point that is over 6km long and its still under construction so there is no ventilation or lights. It's pretty nuts and afterwards we find out that many of us were silently calculating if we could survive getting out of there if there had been an accident. Jeez. I need to google about asphyxiation by carbon monoxide poisoning. Or do I?? But as I mentioned before, the amount of mountains in this country has to cause major infrastructure issues. Like in the case of this tunnel that they need to bore through 6km of mountain to reduce driving time by a few hours. It can happen of course, but it would be costly and take a long time. We are ultimately happy to have the mostly done tunnel to help us reduce our driving time.
The rest of the drive is mostly uneventful. We stop along the road for a break at one point and the view is stunning. It's a remarkable country.
As we near Dushanbe we Emily notices that most people seem to have outdoor pools along the rivers edge. Very enticing but we push on.
Once we get in town we meet with Zafar's manager and get Brian's passport back. I guess I forgot to mention that his visa had come in yesterday during the drive. Whoot!
We are happy to have his passport back in our hands and we pay our fee for the expedited service that we are very happy to have received. We then get dropped off at our hotel.
The temperature outside is definitely in the 40's and the girls don't want to leave their room. I'm jonesing for some good american style food and find a pizza place with a 4.7! Us young folk take off to get some pizza (yes, I include Dave and myself in the young crowd still). We are all grateful for this place, its air conditioned and has cold drinks, a cute vibe and amazing pizza. It is just what we need. After we gorge on several large pizzas, we grab pizza and drinks for the girls and head back to the hotel.
We grab cabs once its dark and head to a suggested restaurant near the opera house. Bruce gets into it with the maitre d at the adjacent restaurant that is trying to pass off his place as the one we want. Kind of funny - but he's in no mood. lol. We finally find where we are going and its a super neat place. Very eclectic with bits and bobs all over the place to look at. We get some drinks flowing and order some food. It's a nice atmosphere but the kids are tired and Cadence still feels a little off. Dave takes Cadence back to the hotel and its not long after he's back and we've eaten that we decide we'd better take the other two back as well.
We get back to our hotel and tuck the girls in. I had noticed earlier that our beds were really hard, and once we get to our room, I turn to Dave and am near desperation for how we will possibles sleep on these things. I ask him to see if they can send us more duvets or pillows. It takes some repeated discussion but we manage to get another duvet and we fold the one we had before and the new one in half and lay them across the middle of the bed. It takes the bed from solid granite to solid marble! Hah! Honestly, I've never slept in anything so hard before. My back is going to be trashed after this trip.
I spend the night laying flat on my back until it goes numb, then rolling over and sleeping on my side until my hip and shoulder go numb, then over to the other side...its a fitful sleep...these guys are not getting a good review!
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