The Pamir experience climaxed early when I decided to take a left turn after Rushan and ventured into the Bartang valley. For the first time I did not know if I was going to be able to finish a route and I felt strangely exited because of it. In the end it was the best decision I have ever made. Three hundred kilometers of full emersion off-road riding and unrivaled beauty. Three days later I came out on the other side of the M41 twenty kilometers south of Karakul. Exhausted, ecstatic and proud. The next day I felt like I was not done yet and decided to still go to the Wakhan valley. I rode most of the M41 to Khorog in one day and took a left turn over the river the day after. A lot of washboard road, broke the left rack in two places and had it welded. The last one hundred kilometers of the Wakhan valley were worth the trip. That evening I spent one hour doing fifteen kilometers on a handful of petrol and reached the unlit streets of Murgabe at night with an empty tank. Early morning I take off on the M41 and reach the Kyrgyzstan border at dusk. The image of the last twenty or so kilometers towards the border will forever remain engraved in my mind. There is a wild quality to the Tadjik Pamirs which fills one with calmness and surrender. You know you have lost something when the snowy tops of Mt. Lenin and Engels become nothing more than a distant image in the rear view mirrors.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 07:45:47 +0000
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