So close, but so far
8 AugToday should have been a good one, but in the end it was one of those frustrating days that make you enjoy the good ones.
I wake early. I look up at the massive mountains that tower on either side of the valley. I can here the water cascading down the small waterfall next to the house, and also from the river below. I can here birds over the sound of the water. The air is crisp around face, and fresh. Eventually I get up and wash myself in the stream. I am still dirty from working on yesterday’s fuel problem. The rest of the house and sleeping beauty (Stephen) get up, and we have breakfast of chai, berries, and bread, sitting at a table they have moved outside. Once again we eat with our host, but the other family members are not present. I comes time to leave, and we try and offer some money for the hospitality. It is refused. Instead we give our host an Australian coin and say thankyou. The car saves us from embarrassment by starting first go for the first time in weeks!
Breakfast at the Pamir House.
We head down the road to Khorog. It’s only 30km, but we stop halfway when we are flagged down by an old Russian bus. They claim to have run out of fuel (although there was a fresh alternator lying 100m up the road!). I ask them whether 92 grade is available in Khorog, they say yes. I give them 2L from our jerry. I watch as they try and use a hand crank to start the engine.
We arrive in Khorog. The first item on our agenda is to register with the OVIR. I’m not sure what it’s about, but you have to do it for stays of over 3 days. We’re already over 3 days, but this proves not to be a problem. We have to find a place to get photocopies, and then pay a fee at a bank. At the bank you have to buy a slip to fill in before you can pay the fee. You need to make two copies of the slip, but it is all in Russian, so there is a lady specially assigned to filling in forms for tourists. This is a centre for tourists who come to trek and climb in the Pamirs, so there are a few of us around. We chat to a Swiss couple about 50yo. They are cycling through the Pamirs, as part of a 15 month tour! I think they’d cycled all the way from Switzerland. Then i back to the OVIR office to hand in the forms, a 20 minute wait, and it’s done.
Next off to the bazaar. We need to buy some matches, as Stephen had a small accident with the as stove yesterday, like the can of butane caught on fire. The ensuing inferno melted the mechanism with the flint in it. We buy some bread, and then buy a rice dish that has been cooked in the bazaar. We sit down at a table opposite the ladies who own the little stall. One of them takes a shine to Stephen, asking him his age. I do some match making, and it’s all looking good until Stephen thinks better of a relationship w a 40yo Pamir lady.
The lady closest to Stephen took a fancy too him.
Next it’s off to the petrol station to get some fuel. We hope to make it to a town with some hot springs about 130km away today. That will leave 600km to Osh. Hang on, where is that petrol station with the 92 fuel? There isn’t one. It’s about 350km back to Dushanbe to get 92, and some 730km to Osh the direction we are going. We have 20L of fuel, so that’s enough to go about 200km. Even if we blend in some 80 grade, we’re not going to make it. We needed to blend 80 all the way from Dushanbe, but we thought there be 92 in this town, so we didn’t bother.
There is one chance, it’s a new looking station that they’re just putting the finishing touches to. I ask if they have 92, and the man nods. I ask if I can have some, and he says no. The pump is broken. I’m at a bit of a loss, so I sit in the shade with the and try and access the options. Surely we can siphon some 92 from the tank. The man is adamant this is not possible. Come tomorrow he says, and maybe it will be fixed (although it transpires he has already been waiting 2 days). Then we work out the station is not open yet, and they haven’t finished installing the pumps. You can look at this and say it is very unlucky that pumps aren’t working, or you can think how lucky we are to be in this situation so close to opening time. He has a newish car, and offer to pay top dollar for the fuel from the tank. There is only a small amount in it however, and it’s not worth while. There is one petrol station, 40km south from here (on the wrong road for us) that might sell 92. I ask if he can ring them, but the phone is so unreliable in Tajikistan that this is more of a joke. We decide to head to the other station. The road is bad, and it is over 3hrs there and back. There is no 92 there. However we do verify on the trip that we can still pick the fuel up from the bottom of the tank.
The road to the petrol station is actually the road to the Wakhan Corridor, which is where the road runs along the Pakistan border. The petrol station is maybe 100km from the Pakistan border (off the tops of my head). Khorog is a crazy place. Maybe 200km north you can take a road that leads you straight to China. To the south we can throw a rock to Afghanistan. In maybe 2hrs we could throw a rock to Pakistan. Tajikistan still has a very Russian feel to it, although it has become progressively more Asian through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and towards the Pamir. You look across the river to Afghanistan and things look so different. Would it be a step change across the border to China. The border was re-opened not long ago, so probably there are serious differences between one and the other. What about Takjikistan to Pakistan? Surely this would be a complete contrast. One thing for sure, it’s hard to get into any of these countries as a tourist.
We’ve found a room in an inn for the evening. It’s okay, but the room is hot, far from last nights experience in the Pamir house. We head into town for some Piva. We cannot find a bar anywhere, but we do find a park by the riverside. It has loads of tall trees (they look like Poplars), and lovely grass and playground equipment. Half of the town is in there, and you sense such a small town atmosphere. Everyone is having fun. We buy some beers from a local shop, and sit on the wall of the river and drink them. The beer is the worst I’ve ever had. We notice a restaurant across the river, where you eat on a balcony over the river. We walk over, order a lamb something with patate, and 2 piva. Forget what I said about the last beer, this beer is positively the worst I have had ever. We spend some time trying to describe it. The first hit on the palate is sour, but then you realize the flavour is predominantly fruity, and very sweet. The thing is, it’s still so tasteless, and also extremely flat. The aftertaste is back to sour. Neither of us makes it past halfway! The food is boiled lamb with crinkle cut potato chips, fried in pan. It’s edible, fills us up, and it’s cheap. We eat and drink for $3US each.
There is nothing we can do in Khorog but wait until tomorrow morning, and hope the pump is connected. We have picked up an old 20L oil container. With 40L fuel in the tank, and 60L in containers, we can travel 1000km. It’s only 750 to Osh. Even with some steep climbs we should make it. Fingers crossed we get fuel tomorrow, as according to our plan we are supposed to leave Tajikistan by the end of the day. At the moment we have no fuel, and we’re 700km from the border, with two passes higher than 4000m to cross. However, there are worse places to wait, the scenery here is unbelievable.
An example of the scenery. It’s actually very hard to capture as most of the time the mountains are too close for my camera.
The town of Khorog from the hill above.
