It was a 220km drive and a 3600m pass separating Osh and Sary-Mogol. Nina handled the road well with only a small hiccup near the top of the pass. Our petrol gauge was broken so with the help of a Chinese truck driver and Google Translate we diagnosed the problem as running out of fuel.. Tommi hitched a ride with our petrol canister to the nearest petrol station and we tried to find help in the meantime. Not long after he left a petrol tanker came past and I flagged it down. The helpful Kygyrz man jumped up on his tanker, lowered a canister in and sold us 10L of fuel directly from his truck, all while on a high mountain pass. It got Nina going again and taught us to be extra careful with her small fuel tank and broken fuel gauge.

Sary-Mogol is a small village nestled between the majestic peaks of the Alay range and the towering 7000m+ Lenin Peak on the other side of the valley. It feels like a real Kyrygz village with mud buildings, basic agriculture, and simple living. It also serves as a major hub for the up and coming tourism industry in southern Kyrgyzstan. With a variety of incredible hiking nearby and the allure of climbing a 7000m mountain with Lenin Peak close by, it makes sense that this little rural mountain village is becoming a tourist town.

We took Nina on her first offroad adventure to Lenin Peak base camp. She handled the road really well even powering through some river crossings, however she lost power when we were nearly at the top. Oddly reminiscing of the other day when we stopped near the top of the pass. Not knowing what else to do, we had our first tow experience back down to a mechanic who helped us start Nina again. At this point we thought we had an issue with driving at high altitude but didn’t know the exact problem, a little bit worrying for our upcoming Pamir Highway adventure..

We are visiting Kyrgyzstan at an interesting time, the tourism industry seems to be in its infancy. Travel influencers have been coming here in the last year or so, a sign that it will become a very popular destination in the next few years. The scenery is extremely beautiful and much of the country still feels untouched. We even noticed it in the way the local children interacted with us. They would come up and ask for chocolate, as they must think that adventurous foreigners coming to Kyrgyzstan to hike must have some. However, the begging from children here is very innocent and unlike the more touristy places we have visited where it is an organised activity and the children are after money.

We spent our time here preparing for the Alay Mountains hike, a 4-5 day hike through the mountains, enjoying the scenery, and checking some things with Nina at a local mechanic referred to not as a "master"' but as a “wizard”.