I'll shoot you there, there, and there
I had to find the exception to the good world rule at least once.
Osh to Bishkek, just over 580 km through the mountains.
The road is long and mountainous between the towns of Osh and Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. Wanting to save myself more than a hundred kilometers, I decide to take a path that tackles one of the many and important mountain ranges that cross the country head-on.
Having learned nothing from my lesson in the mountains Bosnian, and the snow of the peaks pulling me like a magnet in the distance, so I head towards these mountains.
The asphalt has been gone for quite a while when a man stops me in the tiny and last village on this road. I stop, thinking that he just wants to ask me a few questions, like the many people I talk to every day.
This one, on the other hand, is much more insistent.
First of all, I refuse his invitation to a coffee at his place because I have a long way to go. He then takes me roughly by the shoulder and grips my bike tightly to pull it towards his house. I defend myself physically and verbally, and he escalates the violence by pretending to stick one in my face.
I then see in his eyes that he does not seem to have all his head. I then give up confronting him more and agree to follow him to his house, while succeeding despite his insistence on leaving my bike at the entrance gate. In case.
After he asks me to sit down, he makes my instant coffee, and then brings me some sugar. I don't blame it, that I tell him. You will take some, that he answers me.
Sitting next to me on his couch, he then shows me a spoon with a red stone on it. Real or false, I don't know. Still, he starts telling me that this spoon is very expensive and that if I dare to steal it from him, he will shoot me. He then begins to point the various places on my chest and my stomach where he foresees that the bullets will penetrate.
Reassuring.
I start to ogle the door strongly and he notices it. He tells me to stay seated.
The coffee still in hand and barely started, he then wants to force me to drink vodka, which I refuse. He does pour some anyway and I use that moment to pull my legs around my neck to my bike, and try my best to sprint with my 115-pound beast loaded with water and food.
I hear him screaming behind but I pedal too much to even turn around before a few kilometers. After checking, my chest is intact with holes.
It's often because of isolated stories like this that the world seems more terrifying to us than it really is.
However, in seven months of traveling living on the road, sleeping in my tent or with strangers, and accepting all kinds of invitations, I have only had this one and first bad experience where I felt uncomfortable. . I didn't want to hide it from you and paint you an entirely pink world. But just as important is emphasizing the extreme rarity of such an event.
And despite everything, I rather started from this situation so as not to take unnecessary risks. I was alone in a very small village in the mountains where I could not communicate, and far from any possible help if something had happened to me. But mostly I left with the feeling that this man simply must have felt lonely and was unable to interact in a better way with others. Even more with a foreigner on a bicycle.
I will continue not to take unnecessary risks. But that won't stop me from also continuing to talk to people and open up to them.
There are still a lot of good people on my way.
One of the many and difficult climbs on this mountain trail.
