Folly and bravery or Happy Halloween!

31/10/17

It was an uneasy night, winds were blowing, striving to push me and my tent off the cliff that choose to put the tent on.

The following day began poorly from the start - at first I couldn't cook the breakfast because gas canister adapter turned out incompatible with my gas stove. The aperture of the adapter was too small, but maybe it can be widened later using a knife. I might even not blow up after that.
I postponed that tedious task for a while in order to catch the sunrise. So I took my camera and went to a walk in the canyon. The trail separated at some point - the left one goes up, out of the canyon, the right one goes down, closer to the river. I chose the left one.

When I had enough of walking on the animal trails near the stream, I made a rash decision to take a look at the canyon from above without going back to embranchment, just scaling the slope - that trail is likely to be there anyway.
The slope turned out to be very steep with lots of treacherous loose, fragile stones, sand and everything in between. Approximately at the middle of my ascent I suspected that it was a poor decision after all - the canyon is already way below and the top of the mountain is nowhere to be found...

When I did find it my worst suspicions turned into reality - not only there was no trail, but thi mountain was surrounded with precipices and the same kind of slopes I just left behind. Well, there's no choice, I gotta get back down. Good thing I have a lot of experience with mountains and cliffs.

Somehow I managed to get down in one piece, wet, dirty but unharmed I gleefully ran to the river to wash it off.
Returned to the tent, packed my stuff and went back to the road.
Then I hitchhiked to Karkara, the closest settlement to the border. Where I stuck for quite some time as the crossing closes in 6 hours and locals know that, hence no cars in that directions.
It was 12 kilometers left to the frontier post and not a single car in 30 minutes. Well, time to start walking, I still can make it there in time, wrecked feet are not important now.
After a while the road split in two equally bad gravel roads. Which one is used by cars was unclear. 10 minutes later a car passed me on the other road, and disappeared in the distance, making me change the road, swearing and cursing the bad luck. Before I could finish the sentence I noticed 2 more cars on the horizon - a passenger car and a truck. First one passed me without stopping but truck driver unwillingly stopped. He and his passenger were border guards going exactly where I was going and so I made it to the border.

After a brief inspection and quite symbolical questions the border officials let me through. They were completely different from those in russia - polite and friendly. They even made the next truck driver give me a ride from there.
And so I made it through the border in the last day, a few hours before it closed for the winter.

Full gallery: https://supload.com/SJNB5xfNG

To be continued...