After another night in Biskek we were coming towards the end of the trip. Tonight would be our last in Kyrgyzstan, and tomorrow we would be headed for Kazakhstan. In just two days I would be back at home!

Waking up, I had quite a dry mouth and with just dry wafers to eat I had a relatively light breakfast before joining half the group downstairs to grab the minibus for our excursion to the Ala Archa mountains.

Upon arrival Noel was shocked to discover we were going hiking - despite this being on all the literature and in the announcement the previous day, and so with him staying in the restaurant and enjoying the views the rest of us made our way up the mountains, past a sign informing us that it was "prohibited to disunity and mangal". That's me not mangaling here then!

With it being the autumn, as we had made our way north through the region it was becoming colder and colder, and so by now the north facing mountains were already starting to become covered in snow, although it was a fine temperature for hiking.

Making our way up the mountains quickly became a hard task, and with many of us exhausted from two weeks of non-stop travel it was unsurprising that the majority of the group had already turned back before the halfway mark.

As we proceeded towards a flatter part of the hike I could see where we were headed, and with a dip before another climb, the thought of an incline on the way back sealed my decision to start my descent - for I had already gained beautiful views of the Tian Shan mountains on foot.

Taking a leisurely walk back down I met the rest of the group in the restaurant and started to enjoy the warmth of the room as well as the sit down. Hoping the rest of the group would soon rejoin us, I started to feel physically drained, and before I knew it my eyes were shutting and my head was feeling heavy. And then....bash....

A short time later, I awoke to find myself lying on the tiled floor with my fellow travellers panicking around me as I had just fell off my chair and fainted. Now with a bruised head and a bruised ego I had to explain that I was in fact fine, just completely exhausted - the hike having finished me off.


By this point everyone was making their return and so getting onto the minibus we headed back to the hostel. Once we had arrived I was then able to get into bed and try and recover from the physical draining of the morning. With Richard having also had an accident the night before - tripping over a wire and cutting his face, our room might as well has a red cross placed upon it!

As I had already seen much of Bishkek, I spent the rest of the day in bed, popping out only for a short walk to the nearest fast food restaurant - "Big Mack" in order to replenish my calories. However as the exhaustion was so great it was still a struggle to eat the entire meal and not long after I headed back to bed for another rest and sleep before the final full day of the tour.