July 18, 2023 to July 28, 2024
The Pamir Highway Pt.2 The Wakhan Corridor and Murghob
We stayed in some beautiful camp spots along the remainder of the Wakhan valley. The first night we pushed our bikes of the road up to an epic viewpoint of the mountains of Afghanistan. Enjoyed cooking together the remaining eggs which survived the washboard then watched another amazing Pamir night sky slowly appear.
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Another night we struggled hard to find anywhere to sleep as it was getting dark. Resorted to asking a local to camp in their garden, they were of course very accommodating allowing us to cook and sleep there. The next morning they brought us bread and milk tea and I employed some child labour to repair yet another puncture.
Was very grateful for a kind family inviting all 4 of us to stay with them after a long day cycling across the Washboard of the Wakhan Valley. We shared big plates of food and milk tea and learnt about each others lives.
Seb and I made the detour up to Bibi Fatima hot springs, a 2 hour hike up to 3200m, walking along with an old man and passing Yamchun fort. The hot springs were worth the hike and helped to sooth the aching neck and back after the awful road
We were managing just 30km a day due to the worst road quality I've cycled on and because we didn't want to camp too much higher than the night before too avoid altitude sickness. The sandy washboard was draining, killing my back, hands and my spirit as it stretched on endlessly though the mountains. The views though were fantastic and I loved the isolation up here, just us and the marmots, pushing ourselves under our own power up higher than I've even been. The pass (4400m) was slightly underwhelming with no clear summit and the downhill was significantly worst than the uphill, slowing myself to a crawl and often having to push the bike though the thick sand.
Our first sign of civilisation after a couple of days of tough cycling was a military checkpoint in Khargush. There was supposedly a free shelter we could stay in there to escape from the wind and cold at 4000m. However, the officer there tried to charge hotel prices us for the pleasure of spending the night the stinky hut. Declining there offer we sought other options, but all the buildings we saw were already occupied by donkeys (picture above).
A few kilometres more up the road we found a shelter, just as bad as the first but with no one around to charge us. The others still preferred to camp in a cow's stable because of the peculiar smell in the hut but I didn't mind so much and was happy to be out of the strong winds.
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Another problem for days was the lack of shade, there was nothing to hide under and the sun was so strong that it even it burnt me though my t-shirt. Sometimes the only option was to pitch the tent during breaks escape.
After almost a week on these roads I was overwhelmed with joy after seeing tarmac for the first time, reaching the M41 and kissing it. We savoured the short-lived 2km stretch before entering back onto a worse track into a headwind on a detour to Bulun-Kul whilst the others carried on towards Murghob with a tailwind. Seb described it to me as a popular tourist resort town so it sounded worth the detour, eventually arriving to the village it wasn't exactly as described but still beautiful in it's own way.
Our 4 day supply of food had run out but thankfully there were a few things in the shop, including my favourite "blow cookies" (it looked like cocaine after exploding in Adam's bag and are just as addictive). Kids gathered around and giggled at everything we did, was happy to offload some of the huge bag of blow cookies onto them though.
We felt bad declining the many offers to stay in a homestay as it was a very poor village, instead though we camped by the beautiful lake, cooking eggs and vegetables. Seb's tent was falling apart so he slept behind a windshield until it rained and he jumped into my tent.
The next day we left our luggage at the shop and cycled over a pass to Yashikul lake, it was even more stunning and the 5000m mountains around seemed relatively easy from there . Made it back to the shop just when a storm hit. The shop keeper invited us in to her home to meet her family and drink tea with salad. Was grateful to be out of the wind and with such kind people. Luckily the wind was with us after the storm and the way uphill back to the road was far easier than coming down.
Enjoyed the ease of the asphalt, flying along to Alichur to spend the night in a cosy homestay and eating plov with nobody else but Jesus, a Portugese motorbiker.
Leaving Alichur the next day and speeding ahead of Seb, I saw a bike with yellow paniers that looked like his, questioning my sanity in the increasing altitude, I caught up to the mystery man to find someone else. Lim was a 67 year old bike traveler from Singapore. He has travelled over much of the world with and without a bike and it was fascinating hearing his stories whilst riding together and over lunch of cream, butter Kefir and Milk tea (I cant imagine how you'd survive being lactose intolerant here).
We re-joined Lim in a homestay to eat cream, bread and tea together before finishing the ride to Murghab. Here we met 10 more cyclists all staying in the same homestay, also including Kim from Korea, Henning and Marielle from Germany, Tiana and Joos from Switzerland and Adam and Masha . It was a beautiful little community of people all tackling the same route with plenty of stories to share. Murghab was the biggest town we'd seen since khorog and we were looking forward to lots going on. Unfortunately for us though we had arrived just in time for Eid festival which was on for 3 days, meaning everyone was at home and most of the town was closed, including the container bazaar which I was excited to see.
Today's ride: 500 km (311 miles)
Total: 500 km (311 miles)
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