{"id":202,"date":"2019-09-17T12:35:47","date_gmt":"2019-09-17T12:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/?p=202"},"modified":"2019-09-17T12:37:05","modified_gmt":"2019-09-17T12:37:05","slug":"kyrgyzstan-big-water-big-danger-big-car-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlondontomongolia.com\/index.php\/2019\/09\/17\/kyrgyzstan-big-water-big-danger-big-car-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyrgyzstan: big water, big danger, big car problem"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Robin Ewing
Aug. 3, 2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 1am, there was a knock on the van\nwindow. It had stormed up in the mountains where we had camped in northeast\nKyrgyzstan and our makeshift tarp tore off, sending us into the vans for sleep.\nI was curled up in front, wrapped in blankets, Yoav in the middle and Dean in\nthe back. The wind had finally calmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five Kyrzys from the nearby yurts huddled\nin the cold outside, flashlights bobbing. They looked worried. Solaire, the\nspokeswoman said, \u201cBig water. Big danger. My babies. Water in yurt. Bad water. Go\nvillage.\u201d I jumped out and followed a hulk of a man in a camouflage jacket to\nthe stream running down from the mountain behind our car. He pointed at it with\nhis flashlight but there was no need. I could hear it raging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I banged on the sleeping Bandits\u2019 van and we\nrushed to pack up our strewn belongings. Three women appeared with an infant\nand two toddlers wrapped in thick blankets and climbed into our van. The\nbandits tried to start theirs. The battery was dead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Water was turning the soft ground into mud\nunder our feet. We maneuvered around boulders to position for a jump, the van\nbarely moving through the sludge. The water was getting louder. After a few\ntries, the jump worked. We drove down to the main road out but the bridge was\ngone, the road washed out. We couldn\u2019t leave. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The water was coming up fast so we made for\na small hill, the highest spot we could see in the dark. Our van didn\u2019t have\nenough power, the tires spinning in the mud. All the passengers got out, and Owen\nand Yoav pushed from behind, the van scraping up over the rocks. The women and\nchildren climbed back inside. Water surrounded us but it seemed to have stopped\nrising. As long as it didn\u2019t rain anymore, we felt safe enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dean, Yoav and I crammed into the front\nseat. We chatted with Solare in the back. Owen made tea. With nine people in\nour van, we feel asleep sitting up in a row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 5:30am the sun was up and the women vanished,\nleaving behind a dirty baby blanket. The river behind our van was also gone,\njust an empty bed, and an entirely new river ran along our other side. Apparently,\na pileup of rocks had created a dam, diverting the water directly into our camp\nand cutting us off from the road. The new river was too deep to cross. We were\ntrapped. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Campsite before the flood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Campsite the next morning<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So, in what appears to be a running theme,\nwe waited. Various bulldozers arrived and did not much of anything. The road is\nowned by Kumtor Gold Company, a Canadian company that runs an open-pit gold\nmine here at 14,000 feet, and they were responsible for fixing it, Solaire had\nsaid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 1pm, I was sitting in a camp chair in\nthe sun under a glacier topped mountain looking down on the shenanigans. Over\nand over, cars tried to cross the new river and got stuck. A Jeep Cherokee\nattempted to tow a huge bright orange truck with two sheep in the back using a\ntiny tow rope that, of course, snapped, leaving the truck lodged nose down in\nthe water. Another truck made it across to our side and put up two orange\ntraffic cones. Someone said they were building a bridge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later in the afternoon, no bridge, or any\nsign of a possible bridge, had materialized so we decided to drive down closer\nto the action. The Bandits battery was dead again. And now our van wouldn\u2019t run.\nWe popped the hood and started fiddling around, checking for diesel, looking at\nfilters. A group of Kyrgyz men, who had somehow crossed the river on foot,\nappeared and jumped in excitedly, taking vodka shots and shouting as they took\nthings apart. It started to rain and the sky went black.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A couple of drunk “mechanics” look at our van.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The idea of spending another night with two\ndead cars trapped by an unpredictable river with a storm coming and no one to\nhelp but some drunk, incomprehensible men was too much, so the Bandits found a tractor\nto tow us both across the rushing, muddy river for a few dollars. We wrapped\nthe tow rope around the Caterpillar\u2019s bucket and it managed to pull us through,\nthe water reaching to the door. I rode in front waving at everyone on the bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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