Day 3. A Night and Day I'd Rather Forget

After dinner last night I didn't feel right, eventually I was sick, but I also had diarrhea.  This cycle of nausea, vomiting and diarrhea lasted the whole night, leaving me without sleep and completely drained in the morning. My roomie Christopher found me on the floor in the bathroom in the morning, I found the cool tile floor a relief. He got me some Coke, which is my usual Coke trick to give some relief and sugar for energy.  

I wanted to ride, so gingerly put on my kit and set off with the others.  I figured once sitting down on the bike that would be easy enough.  But the heat was intense and after only a few km I didn't feel right and was overcome by a wall of heat. I don't know why I decided at that moment to pull over, but when I did, I promptly fainted. Steve was there with me and tried to stop me falling over, but I ended up in a heap with the bike on top of me.  Steve and Cary pulled it off me and sat me down in the shade and soon a crowd had gathered. When Charlie arrived an electrolyte mix was prepared in an attempt to get my fluids up. Steve said the seriousness of the situation was ably demonstrated by the fact that he has not a single picture of the event.

My bike is loaded on the back of the Hilux support vehicle and the rest of the day was spent in the passenger seat while the others rode 350km. 

The first part of the ride was in the seering heat at lower altitudes and then turned into a deliscious ribbon of mostly fast pristine asphalt that wound its way through and up in to the mountains.  

I was trying to sleep unsuccessfully so missed much of the scenery, but soon we reach Afghanistan! Well we saw it in the distance across the wild, fast flowing, Panj river. 

We followed the river and Afghanistan for about 50km, the Tajik side with the lovely asphalt, while on the Afghan side it was a dirt track complete with a few mopeds carrying their loads. The Taliban are famous for using mopeds to carry any load including missile launchers (but we didn't see any of those).

At one point there was a direction sign to Afghanistan and a road leading to a bridge over the river and an Taliban military base on the other side of the river. 

We stopped several times during the day, but I was so out of it, it was all a blur. So, sorry this blog entry is bereft of details.  

Our hotel for the night is on the side of a smaller river feeding the Panj and we can hear it flowing, which is quite therapeutic. We can also still see Afghanistan in the distance.  

I had some solid food at dinner so hopefully I'll be in better shape to ride tomorrow.

A day of which I wish I had better memories. One interesting snippet is that my Garmin watch's "body battery" indicator was at its lowest % all day. Its never done that. I don't think I've ever been so ill. 

The day before 

Today

The day after