The ‘Stans’ and particularly Bukhara that is fighting a constant battle with the encroaching desert is in short, HOT! To illustrate how hot Bukhara was and is we found that the after our 6 night stopover the candles we keep in the van had melted into a morphed mess. In fact if you were after an easy life the best career to pursue in the Stans would be to become a weather forecaster were predicting the next day’s underpants sweltering temperature wouldn’t be a problem. To further illustrate how hot it was, Chrissy, who could give a camel a run for their money at withstanding the blistering heat, for the first time came out of the van after doing some washing up and looked like the life had been sucked out of her. I asked her if she was ok? If anyone else had endured a 45 degree heat in an airless van as long as Chrissy did they would have replied, ‘If I keel over and die, it was nice knowing you and don’t forget to tell my family that I loved them’. But as optimistically as ever she replied, ‘At least there is one good thing about the heat! I didn’t have to boil the washing up water’. Chrissy exposure to the sweltering temperature made two us and Miranda, the final member of our team fell victim days later.
Unfortunately, when we tried to leave Bukhara I placed Miranda into reverse as normal with the electric control on my door, however, nothing happened and the gears remained firmly in Park. At the same time a lot was happening to Chrissy. Unbeknown to us hundreds of bacteria must have been forming in Chrissy’s stomach after a dubious dinner in a fly infested dungeon-like restaurant the night before, which seemed to be run by pubescent work experience volunteers who had kidnapped the owner and stuffed him down the trap door that all the flies were exuding from. The consequence of these two sequences felt deflating but even more so for poor old Chrissy, who by this time was dashing to the toilet every half an hour. The thought of not being able to put Miranda into gear and of being unable to find an automotive electrician to help us was worrying, to say the least. Moreover, Miranda was parked in a courtyard that trapped the heat during the middle of the day, which made the prospect of lingering in the van to work out what the problem was as irresistible as spending the afternoon in a morgue listening to a dripping tap. Fortunately, our hosts at the Amelia Guest House where we were staying came to our rescue and organised an automotive electrician (or ‘Masters’ as they are know) to meet us the next day, so in the meantime we relocated to another air conditioned refuge, the Atlas Hotel. Over the next few hours I could see that Chrissy’s health was deteriorating as quickly as the toilet paper was disappearing. In spite of being incredible worn out Chrissy managed to battle through the afternoon whilst managing to help me at the same time. For the rest of the day a lot went through our minds. Prior to leaving the UK it was one of our greatest concerns that one of us would fall ill on our proposed overland adventure and we now both wondered anxiously whether I would pick up Chrissy’s bug too. Added to that the worst case scenario for Miranda’s electric problem could mean the end of the trip!
As our appointed loomed with the automotive masters the next day it was obvious that Chrissy wasn’t suffering from just a 24 hour bug. However, she determinedly held out for hours, whilst three automotive elections swarmed over Miranda’s electrics like marauding safari ants. To say that I was nervous is an understatement about these non-English speaking masters fiddling with Miranda’s complicated and intricate electrics. I thought that if they accidently broke my electric accelerator and brake that would be the conclusion to Driving Chrissy Home. At the point when I thought all of my hair was about to fall out whilst watching the 3 masters fiddled with countless wires under the dashboard I heard the familiar clunk of the electric actuator pushing the transmission into gear. Hallelujah, they’ve solved the problem went through my mind and sure enough one hour later all of the wires that were hanging out of the bottom of the dashboard like the intestines of a gutted cow where carefully put back in place and Miranda clunked into gear at every push of the button.
As soon as that problem was solved we were faced with another, which ordinarily we take for granted – filling the van with diesel. The rumours on the street was that whole of Uzbekistan had a fuel shortage. Thankfully, the country has a thriving ‘Black Market’ and after some acute bargaining the dealers of the black market diesel handed the merchandise over during the cover darkness in an unlit street – very dodgy. By the time we left Bukhara the antibiotics that Chrissy had taken were beginning to take effect. During our dilemma’s Chrissy handle the problems admirably despite facing a major one herself.
No comments:
Post a Comment