Gravel road dust and stomach flu

27/8
I slept quite good and when it was time for breakfast I felt rested and ready for today’s trip on gravel road . The breakfast is served in the same place under some shading trees and view of the road. Same menu as yesterdays dinner! boiled meat, bread and nescafé. After breakfast I ask about the toilet and the guy who received me last night points down to the other side of the road.

There is a small rectangular building or shed of stone. When I look in through the doorway, I saw a broken toilet seat that leans suspiciously but there is a hole in the floor as an alternative to the toilet seat.!!

I refrain

The shower is on the other side of the plot a little higher up and it is also a stone building. A washing machine of the model fifties is the first thing I see and in the room inside there is a shower with a nozzle in the ceiling and a water pressure that barely gives water spread, in addition the water is cold, but it´s water and flowing.

Shower and freshen up before I cycle off to Khorough it´s a good start. After just under a km of cycling, the good paved road standard I had the day before is over and the challenge begins, especially for the tires.

The nice and paved road from Shuro–Obod has now turned into a gravel road and consists of loose stones, potholes, holes more stone, dust and sometimes remains of asphalt and 
rest of the way to Khorough will mostly be similar to this if to believe all the info I have received from other bike travelers. Just to accept it.

The trucks I meet are at low speed and I wonder what it is like to sit and shake in a truck along this road. It bumps dangerously and it is important to hold on to the handlebars properly and the speed is for obvious reasons low and I agonize to have problems with the bike after this road.

Despite lack of green areas Pamir is beautiful and majestic

Short after noon I came to Kalai khum, the name means ”fortress on the banks of the river of Khumb” a little lager community and a important village as overnight rest which explain the number s of hotels and homestays. I did a stop here for water refilling and resting my legs but also quench my thirst with a cold beer. Before I left I meet another guy on bucycle, an older one from UK. We shared some info about our ride and thing like that. Always fun to meet like-minded people, hope they have same thoughts about me!

The road out of town is steep, and I can barely make it up without hopping off the bike. The distance sign above warns there’s no easy ride to Khorugh ahead, though I already suspected as much.

Still, the bumpy road is worth it for the stunning, almost magical scenery—small villages like green oases, filled with trees, bushes, and plantations, with light brown clay houses scattered throughout, and Panj river floating slowley. Between those beautiful scenerys It doesn’t grow much, sand, gravel and huge mountains. On the Afghan side, it seems to be more green than on the Tajik side.

It shakes and jolts so much that I find it hard to believe I will reach Khorough without getting several punctures. Even the trucks have a hard time – they roll so slowly that sometimes I get up the hill faster than they get down! They must be overloaded, and the brakes can’t handle it, so they use the engine brake all the time.
The jeeps, however drive a bit  faster and honk persistently if I don’t immediately move aside. Sometimes I refuse to listen to their eager honking as I have no desire to ride  far out on the right edge,in loose gravel with a ravine dropping straight down the river. Truck wrecks along the road testify to this and
that´s  important to find a suitable place to stop.

Some parts of this highway, M41 are however quite good, but if paved all way to Khoroug much of this historic and mythical road would lose some of its soul.

Several stops for waterrefilling and I also took chances to freshen up my self  in the cold streams that flow into the Panj River. From
the other side the child shouts and waves to me and I realise how different people’s everyday lives can be like. Pamir Highway is more than a road,
it is a lifeline for all who live by it. 

On the Afghan side, the villages are linked by narrow paths or trails that sometimes seem to defy gravity as they wind along the mountainside.

In the evening I pitch my tent on a plateau next to the Panj River and on the other side an Afghan village right across from me on a hillside. It is so steep that the cars going up to the village rumble a lot when they are about to get up and it looks almost scary when you see the bright cones of the car headlights straight up to the sky.

Nevertheless is mightily to sit inside tent , drink coffee and watch the lights in the houses turn on and off, hear voices talking and laughing. While I checking out the activities on the mountainside I´m preparing evening dinner. Later in the evening I heard some religious exclamation from some local minaret.

I crawled down into my sleepingbag around 9 p.m and started up my audiobook. Later in evening I woke up several times feeling sick, dizziness and proberly I had fever. From now until 6 a.m. and make a number of trips to the toilet in the area. I use nature’s toilet six times.

 

See yea later
P-G
// The Global Cyclist