Khorog – Kalaikhum

4th August 2014        21-35’C       246km off road
Khorog – Kalaikhum

After a quick roadside breakfast, consisting of a couple of local muffins and a cherry juice, shared with the two Italian bikers I met last night, I headed out to finish the Pamir Highway. ‘Highway’ is a misnomer, as the trail was almost 250km of off-road, sand, rocks, gravel. The road, cut into the side of the cliff with a huge drop and no guardrail between the road and the raging Pamir river below.
This combined with crazy drivers and huge Chinese trucks that squeezed me to the very edge of the cliff on a number of occasions. The temperature hit 35’C, making the dust from the trucks stick to my sweaty skin.

Just across the river laid Afghanistan, and many small Afgan settlements dotted the far bank of the river. I stopped regularly to drink water, take photos and blow the dust from my nose.

As I passed through the many villages, children would often stand in the middle of the road, forcing me to stop. On half of these occasions, they would say “hello!” then just stare at me. The other times they would be trying to sell something. I was presented with various items for sale at each stop. Nuts, tomatoes, cucumbers, berries, apricots, apples and even two puppies. The sellers were very persistent, pushing items onto the bike and almost forcing me to buy. In the end, I purchased some apples from three young girls who were somewhat less aggressive, although they then tried to get me to take tomatoes also. Which would have turned into tomato juice within 2km of this road!

I was stopped at yet another checkpoint, my passport details and GBAO permit recorded in another huge notebook. I wonder if anyone ever reconciles these books of records.

I finally rolled into Kalaikhum at around 5pm, and as I was riding slowly down the main street, looking for a guesthouse, a cop stepped out of the police station, saw me and waved at me to stop. He was a dead giveaway, the look in his eyes gave away his intent. I stopped in the middle of the road, and he asked for my passport. I challenged him with “why?”. He wasn’t prepared for that, and I could see him trying to think up a reason. He eventually said “registratsija”. I challenged him again, “why? What registratsija?”. Fortunately, another cop just stepped out of the station, and asked my dodgy cop something, then told him to let me go. I’m glad the straight cop showed up when he did.

I located a family with a spare room that they were renting out as a very very basic guesthouse, a room, with no furniture, not even a bed. And after a quick shower, went to locate some food. A long hard day of riding.