After dinner last night where the bread was super fresh the rock hard stuff we got at breakfast was a serious disappointment! The rest of breakfast wasn’t so bad, with fried eggs, a pancake with home made jam and tea.
I then proceeded to spend pretty much all morning getting the company accounts for the last two months together to send off to the accountant so that the last quarter’s VAT return can be done. A job which I generally dislike, but which usually takes about 1 hour per month ends up taking a whole lot longer when you’re connected to the internet by tin cans and string!
The next issue came once I’d got everything ready to send – the internet connection was so slow, and with the power in the hotel off, the battery in my laptop and internet dongle were going flat faster than the email would send, and faster than my solar panels could recharge their batteries!
In the end I split the file into three parts and I think I’ve been successful in getting everything through to Denise – I guess I won’t know till I get to Khorog!
Lunch came courtesy of the snack-shop at the hotel – a range of fried savoury doughnuts (for want of a better way to describe them) which were far tastier than they may sound.
Since then I’ve sorted out my day bag, getting all the dust and debris from five camping nights (including the very dusty night in Karakul) out of the bottom, purchased supplies for the week ahead, had a wee nap, had an ice cream, a couple of beers, a chat with other riders and generally lazed about.
I considered going for a walk around town, but figured that I’d seen all there was to see yesterday, so as at 1645 I’ve not actually left the hotel property since what appears to be the best shop in town is actually part of the hotel ‘complex’ (which makes it sound way flasher than it is).
This week’s nice and short at only three days, though we’re still up in the mountains and for the first two days have passes over 4,000m to cross each day before we descend into Khorog for our next rest day.
Continuing the Pamir Highway
Hopefully my laundry will be back soon so I can get my day bag packed ready for the coming week before dinner.
Why discharging the laptop?
One of the other riders had a problem with his Macbook Air where the battery expanded and was threatening to break out of the keyboard in Gremlin style and allegedly partially discharging the battery will help prevent this (I don’t actually believe that, but it was the reason given)
I suspect not buying a Macbook would prevent that! Same thing happened to mine and I never took it up any big hills…