I’m super adventurous on trying new foods. I’ll pretty much try anything once. Back in the US I’ve eaten rattlesnake and alligator – both were great. In Thailand, I tried fried insects – good but a bit too bitter for my liking. And when I lived in China, I had water buffalo, dog and fish entrails. The buffalo was great. And as a dog lover, I was horrified to discover that dog hotpot tasted amazingly good. But the entrails, nope. Those resulted in food poisoning so I can’t recommend those.

So with that in mind, while in Kyrgyzstan, my plan is to try as much as possible to eat what the Kyrzyg eat. The first night I went to a restaurant where there the menu had no pictures, it was written entirely in Russian and they only spoke Russian. I ended up with some beef stew thing served with rice. It was great. I really wish I knew what it was called.

Last night I went to dinner with some fellow racers and I tried beshbarmak which is basically boiled meat over noodles. I had several options for meat and figured what the heck. Let’s go for horse. It was flavored with a lot of black pepper. The texture of horse was pretty much what I expected – a bit tough, but not overly so. Overall it was a nice meal with a unique flavor.

I was also offered Kumis which is fermented horse milk. I’m a bit concerned about getting food poisoning before the race starts. So I wasn’t quite ready to make that plunge yet. I will give it a go eventually. Apparently Kumis is almost unavoidable once we get on the trail. Max Riese who is here and did the race in 2019 told me that horsemen will pull warm flasks of Kumis out of their boots and offer you a drink at the most random times.