After escaping rain all day yesterday it came in the night which is fine by me – other than the fact that it means packing a wet tent, but that’s preferable to trying to ride or set up camp in the rain.
Some people still seemed to be up ridiculously early this morning despite the fact that we only had 5km to ride, and we had to wait for the vehicles to get to the Krygyz border (so we could hand over our passports to be taken ahead to the Tajik border to smooth the process of getting through there) before heading off up the pass, they also left camp far earlier than necessary.
Stage 58 route notes to take us to Tajikistan
Clearly some waiting was going to be required and as camp was in the sun, and the border post was in the valley (where the sun wasn’t going to be yet) I figured staying at camp was the best option, particularly given it was 6ºC at this point.
Charlie and I timed things perfectly – the trucks passed us with 500m to go and by the time we got to the border crossing all the people in front of us had got themselves stamped out of Kyrgyzstan and were shivering in the shade waiting for Jacob so they could hand over their passports. We walked in, got our passports stamped, walked out, handed them to Jacob just as he walked up, and continued on our way having barely stopped!
The initial climb was on (pretty rough) pavement – clearly the Soviets had built this road in more prosperous times and it’s being left to decay – at one point it had been washed out completely and a ‘stream’ crossing was necessary. It proved to be deeper than it appeared, but not quite as deep as the top of my waterproof socks!
As I got to the steeper part of the climb there were four semi-trailer trucks trying to get up the switchbacks and having a challenging time of it – as they came round the corners the weight shifted to one side which meant the wheels on the opposite weren’t loaded and would spin on the muddy surface. Their only approach seemed to be reversing and trying again – somehow this seemed to work as they gradually made their way up.
Making progress in the muddy conditions
I continued on up making my way between the trucks – I can see why they were having problems – it was very steep and very slippery on those corners and I ended up walking a couple of them, before coming over the top of the pass to the lunch stop.
[see if I can get one of Niek’s photos of me]
I’d seen a couple of furry creatures on the way up which I didn’t recognise – apparently they were marmots and I saw a few more of them on the way down (see if you can spot them 😉
Somewhere in there are four marmots!
The Tajik border crossing was only 1km down the hill from lunch and Grant, Niek and I arrived together to find Henry (the owner of TDA who’s been with us for a couple of weeks) and our local Tajik ‘fixer’ Jovid waiting there for us with our passports. Somehow Jovid had worked some magic so we didn’t have to do anything – he took our passports in one door saying ‘wait here’, came back a few minutes later and said ‘follow me’, we walked a 100m to where he said ‘wait here’ again. We waited – he returned, handed over our passports and said ‘enjoy your ride, see you in camp’. Perfect!
As we’ve noticed a couple of times previously you cross a border and the whole world changes
Into Tajikistan
The next 10km were on gravel which varied in quality from barely rideable to bloody awful – it was like being back in Mongolia! About the only saving grace was that it was downhill.
Back onto pavement and the final climb for the day began – the route notes had made it sound like it was a 200m climb over 10km, however most of the climbing came in one go which made things a bit harder than expected. The distances also seemed somewhat ‘off’ with the noted things arriving about 2km sooner than expected.
Over the top of this ‘pass’ and we began to catch glimpses of Lake Karakul which was apparently formed by a meteorite impact – given the size of the lake it must have been a bloody big bang!
Karakul lake in the distance
I stopped to take a couple of photos and eat a Snickers during which time Niek and Grant caught up with me and we rode together for a few km before Grant and Niek decided to have a race – I left them to it, but in the end got to camp first because when we got into the town Niek stopped at the first ‘blue and white homestay building’ despite an absence of flagging and while they were there I continued on to the right place.
Tonight we’re in the compound of a homestay again (as we were in Sary Tash) though this one has far more rooms so rather a lot of people have elected for staying inside – Micahel, Erwin and I however have lined our tents up in the shade of the wall of one of the buildings.
About the only drawback with this place is the mossies! Whomever thinks that mossies don’t live at high altitudes has clearly never been to Karakul in Tajikistan because we’re at 3,950m and there are swarms of the hungry little buggers everywhere!
For quite a bit of the afternoon there was a pretty significant fence on our left which seemed an odd place for the border with China (which was just over the mountain range) to be – it turns out that in Soviet times there was a ‘forbidden zone’ of between 5 and 10km width either side of the border into which the local people on neither side were allowed. It seems that this zone was patrolled by armed soliders – which also explains the size of the military complex in Karakul which seems decidedly oversized for the town.
These days the relationship between China and Tajikistan is very good, and the Tajik government have no interest in spending the money to maintain it, so it’s falling into disrepair.
I’ve just been for a wander round the town to see what was to be seen – perhaps the most Muhammad-foresaken town in the most stunning location you could imagine. Take a look at the photos below of both the town and the lake.
I already had an inkling of what it would be like from what Mark, our chef, said of the store – he walked in and they had three cabbages, a small sack of potatoes and a (large) box of eggs and that was about it, so he bought the lot!
Having now completed stage 58 we’re just over half way through the 117 stages so it seems like a good time for an update on overall progress.
As at the end of today we’ve covered 6,521km for 48.8% of the distance and climbed 48,473m in the process in 58 riding days and 70 elapsed days.
Tomorrow’s another short day to help with acclimatisation before the highest pass of the trip, Ak-Baital Pass at 4,654m the following day on our way into the next rest day in Murghab.
Riding data
View from my tent
Actually, it’s the view from the loo, but it was much more interesting than the view from my tent, which was Erwin’s tent!
Googles Marmot – cute!! Good think Rhonda wasn’t in charge of one of those trucks I say!
Marmots are awesome little critters. We met them on the Grosglockner Pass summit in Austria. Seem to live on a diet of stones, if the terrain is any indication of nutrients available.