to Alichur: feels like the end of the world

July 19, 2016

We get up at 5:30, pack, have coffee and porridge and are ready to go by about 6:15. We wake Maarten and Edwin, but they don’t move quite as fast in the morning. They are faster cyclists though, so we set off. From our camp, the road gradually climbs to another summit. Even though this one is not marked on the map it is almost the same height as Koitezek Pass. The wind is not as strong as yesterday, but it is cold. The scenery is awesome, wide open valleys, snow covered peaks and colorful rocks. Not much vegetation to hide the shapes of the land.

We reach a viewpoint from where we look down onto a wide open valley with two lakes. Below us are the grey colored Tuzkul and blue Sasykul lakes. A nice downhill takes us to the Wakhan Valley turn-off. I think we made the right decision going route M41, this route was not easy either, but the Wakhan would have been too hard mentally after the cycling we have done, in Spiti and Ladakh the last couple of months.

During our descent to the lakes we meet a cyclist from Germany and his Hong Kong companion on their way west. We are glad we are headed east, the headwinds would have been bad. We will pay the price later though, after Murghab when we turn northwest towards Kyrgyzstan.

A couple more unexpected hills with nasty steep sections take us to another high point from where we can see Alichur. A collection of white washed one-story square buildings set in a wide green valley against a backdrop of rugged rocks and snow covered mountains. A very isolated place, even this time of year. We can only imagine how it will be in winter with minus forty degrees centigrade and the wind blowing.

We heard about the Marco Polo Homestay while we were only just starting our ride from Dushanbe. It is indeed hard to miss, the name is painted right on the white washed walls. From the outside it does not look like much, but the hospitality inside makes up for what the facilities lack. For 80 TPS per person you have a place to sleep, this includes lunch, dinner and breakfast. We arrive just as the bread is being placed into the tandoori oven. We are received with tea, then lunch with the freshly baked bread.

We settle in a large open room, if other guest show up we will all have to share. After lunch we take a bucket bath with piping hot water in a small room that is heated by the backside of the central stove. It is very hot inside, we can mix hot and cold water for the perfect bucket shower. In the afternoon, as we are given tea, Maarten and Edwin, plus another Swiss cyclist show up, they decide to stay in a yurt just down the road. Dinner is very nice with barley soup and more fresh bread.

Tomorrow the plan is to ride all the way to Murghab and then take rest days before the next long push to Osh.