June 11, 2012

After a relatively good night of sleep, I was delighted to have a mug of real coffee after eleven days of having to make do with just instant imitation of the stuff. Ryan hooked me into his Internet connection which is paid for the United Nations and thus much faster that mine. I took advantage of it to upload the tons of photos I had taken during my long trip.

I walked to the Kazak embassy and got lucky as there was person in front of me speaking decent Russian and I could see the clerk handling a photocopy of an American passport. He turned out to be an employee of the American embassy and happily interpreted for me letting me know the visa was ready and I just needed to go to the bank and pay the $30.00 fee. I made the long walk realizing along the way that I had dressed in my skinny jeans and polo shirt and now all the men were staring at me since Eraj was not by my side anymore. After paying for the visa, I noticed a sign for Air Astana on my left and inquired about buying a plane ticket from them. Jorge, from Argentina, tried to sell me a ticket at least one hundred dollars more than what the website had shown me and I refused to pay that much even when he tried to entice me with the notion of paying with my credit card through a secure vendor.

Govher, one of my students from the interpreters group, had called to arrange a visit so she could obtain teaching materials from me. She arrived just in time for us to have lunch at the cafeteria next to the Puppet Theater where only kurtob is served. It was just like I remembered it: soggy layers of bread covered with a yogurt-like liquid and then sprinkled with some kind of herb and lots of sliced onions. The cherry juice had been made with the local water and had an awful aftertaste. I stopped at the travel agency next to the supermarket and the young woman called Air Astana for a quote as she didn’t have access to the website she claimed. She gave me a quote for $550.00 and I told her it was way too high.

We returned to the apartment to find Ryan getting ready for a nap after having had his lunch. He helped me navigate the Air Astana website and I was able to book my ticket for Wednesday for 317.00 Euros or about $394.00.. I sent an email to both Valerie and Harry notifying them of my upcoming arrival. I also notified Harry that I refused to travel to Istaravshan through the horrific pass I had come through on the way back from Khujand. Neither one of them replied right away. Govher transferred some of her movies in English to me and did the same for her. We talked about her future plans, and she confirmed she’ll be returning to her country, Turkmenistan, to become an English teacher at the end of this month.

We walked together as far as the supermarket so I could buy some cheese and cold water as I was not about to cook dinner. When I got back to the apartment, Ryan had come back from work with two bags loaded with groceries as he had invited another Couch Surfer to dinner. The guy was from one of the Balkan countries and told us he had been traveling for the last 62 days spending on average two Euros a day or $2.51. He also claimed he let his beard grow before traveling through Afghanistan and then pretended to be deaf-mute so he didn’t have to talk and garnered quite a bit of pity from Afghans who, supposedly, never suspected him of being a foreigner. He told us he was on his way to China to teach English for a while even though his English was faltering at best.

When he left, Ryan and I commented that neither one of us would ever embark on a trip if we didn’t have enough money to be somewhat comfortable and able to eat what we wanted. I cleared the table and left all the dishes in the sink as Ryan told me the cleaning lady comes in on Tuesdays and I really didn’t know where things belong anyway.

Ryan’s bed is simply a box spring and he has no korpachas to soften the hard surface. I read for a while trying to finish the book “The Tiger’s Wife” which has turned out to be quite engrossing.