Day 43-44 - first time on horses

We both have never sat on a horse before!
Because all the guides were occupied Ibrahim would accompany us today on this 6 hour ride and he assured us that those horses are very calm and we would be doing just fine on them.  


Guess what, he was right!
After an awesome pancake breakfast three horses were waiting for us. We jumped onto them and trotted behind Ibrahim over a surprisingly rocky road through the village, uphill and out through fields and pastures. 
Ibrahim is a guy one can have good conversations with while riding on horseback next to each other. He brought us to a big waterfall, then into a forrest that looked like every square meter is taken care of by a perfectionist gardener. It's a walnut forrest with trees some of them hundreds of years old. after the end of the Soviet Union this forrest was given to the care of a number of local people. And the government documents each tree precisely twice a year, to prevent illegal cutting of them. It's simply beautiful and the system apparently works. 

In middle of this beautiful trees we had a picnic of Uzbek bread, Russian fish from a can and grapes from Ibrahim's garden, while the horses were eating grass. Or the boys looking after the horses were playing games where one is trying to pull the other out of the saddle. Damn, those kids know how to ride horses!!

We kept riding through the forrest for a good while, before getting back to a little waterfall and finished our round trip back in Arslanbob at Ibrahim's home. 

What a day! Delicious food, relaxed riding horses through a ferry land and wonderful company. 

Note on the side: Chris' horse was called "Odin's hammer" while Matthias' was called "the slow one in the back"

On the bikes again the 200 km to Osh were easy riding. We headed east passed Jallal Abad to get around the Uzbek country border that makes a bit of a corner here. Then west again and the closer we got to Osh the warmer it got down to the bottom of the Fergana valley. 

We reached Osh in the afternoon and checked into a hostel with a few bicycle riders. We keep meeting more and more travelers who mainly ride bicycles from Europe to Central Asia. Big respect for their toughness! ..but we still prefer motorbikes :)

Found ourselves some good old shashlik and called it a day. 

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