We left Aktash at 9:00 in the morning. Margaux and Khairlis were sleeping when I woke up at 7:00. I went for an early walk around the village. The weather seemed to be better and there wasn’t any snow or ice on the road. Before beginning our journey, we stopped for gas at the local station. There are just over three hundred fifty kilometers to Gorno-Altaisk.

We made a couple of stops spaced approximately one hour apart. The first one was on the side of the road, surrounded by beautiful mountain scenery. For the second one, we stopped for lunch at Chike-Taman High Pass, where we had a kind of crepe filled with meat and cheese. The landscape I see is very different from the one I witnessed in 2019.

The snow seems to dissipate but, in some places, it reappears.

In fact, at Seminskiy High pass, we found snow and some ice on the road. I realized Khairlis was feeling tired and we stopped again at a restaurant on the side of the road to stretch our legs and have some coffee. We arrived in Gorno-Altaisk at 4:00 p.m., and Khairlis met another friend who also bought a vehicle from Mongolia and will sell it in Kyrgyzstan. In total, three vehicles were making this journey.

While we waited, they removed the tinted plastic from the windows. Once all three cars were there, the drivers had a discussion and decided they would continue to Barnaul and take us there. After several hours of observing the road, we did not find anywhere where we could have my motorcycle down to the ground by our means.

Further down the road, Margaux receives a relieving message.

The workshop we were heading to confirmed they had the means to do handle my motorcycle. We continued together, traveling a total of six hundred kilometers inside the small truck cockpit. Due to the city’s traffic jams, we arrived at the workshop after 9:30 p.m. The owner, Alexey, and Margaux’s partner, Lucas, were waiting for us there, along with two other people.

We took down all of Margaux’s luggage and motorcycle by hand. For mine, they used a truck with an articulated arm that was conveniently parked next to the garage’s entrance. Margaux explains to Alexey all the problems she has with her motorcycle so that they can repair as much as possible before she leaves in two days.

It is unlikely they will fix the gasoline tank leak on time.

After all the instructions were made, we went to the hotel Lucas had already booked for us. We left our things and went out for dinner not far from there.

After midnight, we called it a day.