Cycling Day 10: Sirdayo to Jizzax

 This was a day to just grind out the miles, persevere and endure the heat. 

I woke up at the crack of dawn, thinking I would get out before everyone was awake. To my surprise, the whole family was up to have breakfast together at 4:30 and see me off.

The early morning heat was already close to 90 degrees. I also had a bit of extra mileage to go, since I hadn’t gotten as far the previous day. 85 miles would be a challenge. 

Riding into the Jizzax precinct

I managed to push and cruise along and get to about 65 miles before the searing heat cut me off. I was miles from anywhere and pulled into a gas station. There were no services at the station, just a couple of pumps, but no store. While I was studying the map and figuring out where I could spend the afternoon in some shade, the gas station owner came out from behind a gate with a couple of his children. 

One of Oybek’s children as I rode into the gas station. He dropped a piece of paper he was holding to admire my bike, then turned around and needed the paper back, hence his expression

He introduced himself as Oybek, and he was pretty surprised to see me and even took a couple photos, presumably to show people what just rolled into his gas station. I told him I was very hot and was just looking for a place nearby to cool off. So he invited me to have some tea in his office. He told me to leave my bike in front - nothing would happen to it - and I followed him through the gate and around into the office. The office was in two parts - a back room with a tapchan, a table on the tapchan and a couple of mats, like the ones I had been sleeping on, and a front area where the attendant window was located. There was also an air conditioner in the back room, what a relief. He monitored the station from the back room and would go to the window, take people’s money and activate the pump when they rolled up. We had some tea while he told me about his family and the cars that came to the station. He was curious about fuel injection volumes in the United States, although I don’t really know anything about that. I also imagine that they vast majority of the cars that he sees are Chevrolets.

Oybek with our plov lunch in the back room

After about 15 minutes, somebody came into the station and dropped off a large plate of Plov. Maybe he had sent a message to someone, but they just got out of the car with this prepared food, handed it through the window and drove off. He handed me a spoon and we ate together, followed by some watermelon and more tea. I started to get pretty tired, the 3:30AM wake up and early start had wiped me out. He handed me a pillow and told me to just relax on the tapchan and I fell asleep very quickly after that.

I woke up periodically to people coming to the window, honking their horns and filling up their cars. But I mostly slept until the early afternoon. Oybek came in and out and was very accommodating. At 5pm, I didn’t want to take up more of his space, although he didn’t kick me out. He asked for my number so that we could keep in touch and recommended a restaurant to try for some famous Jizzax samsas.

Late arrival in Jizzax

I rode the last 25 miles into Jizzax. It was still very hot, but I arrived just after sunset. I went to the restaurant first and had a single, giant samsa, which was perfect after the last portion of the ride. 

Jizzax samsas are known for their size. This one did not disappoint.

I also didn’t have the wherewithal at that time of night to try to camp or anything like that. So I rode down the street and found a nearby hotel, checked myself in and fell asleep while brushing my teeth. It was about 10:30pm and I planned to keep up my effort and try to reach Samarqand by tomorrow.

Islomjon - the samsa restaurant Oybek had recommended to me.