Day 4. Wednesday, August 2^nd. Rest day in Karakol

Phew! I needed this day of recuperation, and body and bike maintenance. I never left our pleasant hotel, comfortingly named the MyHotel, from when we arrived late Tuesday afternoon until we departed early Thursday morning.

I should explain dates to avoid confusion. The date you see at the very top of each blog is the day I posted it. As you’ll notice, tho, I’m failing to write each evening. I’m up at 5am each riding day, departing just after 6am and not arriving to our camp ‘til late afternoon.

What with sorting out tent, self, bike, and eating the delicious food prepared by our TDA crew and sliding into my sleeping bag by about 8.30pm I haven’t had the time or energy to write each evening.

So I’m catching up on my blogs on our rest days, which mercifully give us two nights in an hotel. Each blog starts with day, date and location, and I may write a blog as if it was on the day itself. But the date of posting is the give-away!

By all accounts from my fellow riders, Karakol is a very pleasant place at the far eastern end of Issyk Kul, the enormous lake featuring in the next two days’ blogs. But I’m pacing myself very carefully, hence my very restful day.

This is a ski hotel in winter, with big fields up on the nearby mountains close to the Chinese border. Apart from us riders, tho, there seemed to be few summer guests. It has some notable features, such as the reflective ceiling which gives a sense of grand proportions…until you notice the weird reflections on it.