Day 3: Travelling to Osh

The sound of my 3am alarm rudely disturbed my peaceful slumber. I shuffled around my hotel room, frantically stuffing items into my kit bag and diving on it in an attempt to reduce the volume of the contents and successfully zip it up. Anyone who's spent time trekking in remote mountains will understand, the last minute panic to steal the hotel toilet roll and stash it in between your belongings! I stumbled downstairs, weighed down by gear, and sleepily acknowledged the others as we waited around for our mountain guides to escort us to the airport. Two Russian men entered the hotel lobby, one with a lit cigarette hanging out the corner of his mouth and the other with large tattoos on each forearm reading, "Do not presume" and "Do not despair". The back of his t-shirt read "Harden the f***up", I glanced over to Alex and Patrick who looked equally bewildered. "Get on the bus" Russian number one announced in a strong accent, not introducing himself as our guide. Alex was finding the situation equally confusing and hilarious and she whispered to me, "Is he our guide or are we being kidnapped by angry Russian men?" We figured we'd hopefully find out the answer in the coming hours and settled into a bus journey filled with whispering, giggling and uncertainty.

On arrival to the airport, we followed our new Russian leaders who were still yet to introduce themselves. We queued, checked into the flight and waited. The flight was only 40 minutes so in no time we'd landed in Osh, the Southern capital of the country and the oldest city in Kyrgyzstan. We couldn't check into the hotel so dropped off our bags and were told to "follow" by the Russians as we piled back onto the minibus and were driven to a nearby bazaar. Russian one (we still hasn't received an introduction), pointed ahead to the market which spread across many orderly looking straight streets. "Walk, make decision" he said firmly, encouraging us to choose a direction to explore the market and provided no context to the situation. At this point Alex and I joked that we had found ourselves on some Russian military operation and began wandering the market with tears of laughter at how surreal the situation was. Everytime we would reach a junction in the market we would jokingly say "Make decision" before deciding which way to wander.

Colourful arrays of dried fruits and spices lined the stalls. The English translations of the spices were confusingly hilarious, as bright orange and red spices were labelled; "The hole is sharp" and "The light is red." The demeanour of the stall owners was extremely relaxed, world's apart from the souks of the Middle Eastern countries. There was no push for you to purchase anything, just polite smiles and gentle assistance if you wanted to browse further.

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Following our market exploration, the Russians gathered us and took us for lunch in a local restaurant before we checked into our hotel. Darren, an Australian traveller who has the look of someone who had endless tales of adventure and works as a vet for Sydney zoo, suggested to the Russians that we all introduce each other. "Later", Russian one replied harshly. "Briefing at 6pm" he continued. Luckily everyone was finding the situation funny if not completely baffling, as mountain guides are usually among some of the most charismatic, kind individuals you'll ever meet. Alex jokingly referred to them as "my lovely Russian sweethearts" as we still questioned whether they were actually our guides.

We spent the afternoon resting and drinking tea before attending our briefing. The Russians had got changed into matching "World expeditions" t-shirts, which was the only piece of evidence we had received to let us know they were in fact our guides. The briefing was as beautifully matter of fact as expected as he ran through the plan for the next day. "Breakfast 7am, bus 8am, 4 hour drive, acclimatisation begins" Russian one stated. Alex and I were holding back giggles as other members of the group began to dig for further details. We finally were given their names; Russian one was Roman and Russian two was Sergei. They did not ask our names in return. We ate a dinner of what I can only describe as a horse based stew before retreating to bed in anticipation of what our Russian military mountain training had in store for us!