Miles driven: 144
Time in Car: 7 hours
Borders crossed: 1
At 6:30 am, we woke up in our yurt. Thankfully the thick blankets provided were warm enough because the air temp was frigid. We had a quick breakfast at the hotel and set out on our search for a mechanic. The hotel manager, who spoke English well, had told us that Rasul, a local mechanic, could help us out. He pointed to where to go on a map and we set off.
Murghab
Murghab is a city that sits at 13,000+ feet and probably has a population of a couple hundred. It’s not your typical town with a grocery store, bank, and town hall. About 80% of the buildings were made out of old shipping containers due to the harsh winters and even harsher winds - some buildings had windows but they acted more as a dust entry point than a opening for natural sunlight. At around 7:30 we came upon the “mechanic” building - which had a sign out front that read ABTO. It had a double metal doors that looked like a garage and peering into the window it looked like it has an abundance of tools. However, it was locked up and no one seemed to be coming. In the meantime, we started unpacking our roof box set-up as we had to repair two of the connection brackets anyways. Soon enough though, a small crowd of curious Murghab locals came up to our car wondering what 3 Americans were doing. Through some google translate into Russian and Kyrgyz, we soon found out that we weren’t at the right spot. Mike and a local went to fetch the mechanic, Rasul, and then we drove to the right mechanic shop, which was just a house that had a garage with a mechanic pit. We took to fixing the roof rack rails and Rasul went to flattening our folded over sump guard plate with a hammer. We found some bolts that fit the roof rail connectors and Rasul beat the sump back into a flat piece of metal. Rasul then ran to a town party for an hour before bringing back one of his friends with a welding machine. After about 40 minutes of welding and replacing some bolts, our sump had been refitted. We paid Rasul and his friend 200 som and gave them 2 packs of reds as a sign of our gratitude. We posed for a pic with our new friend, Rasul, and headed off.
Rasul
Drive out of Murghab
The drive today meandered through the Pamir valleys as we turned north towards Kyrgyzstan, away from the Chinese border. Rust colored mountains surrounded the road on either side as we drove alone down the Pamir Highway. One of the highlights of the drive was climbing up and over Ak-Baital Pass - the highest point of the Pamir Highway (and the rally for that matter) at 4655 m. The biting cold wind howled through the mountain gap but we took in the he spectacular views. Descending the mountain pass, we next came upon the village of Karakul which sits next to the huge, blue alpine lake that shares the same name. While many towns in the high Pamirs seem to defy the laws of nature purely by existing, Karakul looked especially desolate. It was August, the winds were at 40 mph, and the ambient temperature was below freezing. I don’t want to imagine what winter is like here. Across the lake however, we took in stunning views, some of the best of the whole Pamirs which is saying a lot. Across Lake Karakul, monstrous snow-capped jagged peaks dominated the skyline. Lenin’s Peak stands tall above the rest at 7134 m, or 23,000+ ft, but due to cloud coverage, we couldn’t tell if we could actually see it.
Ak-Baital Pass - “The Roof of the World”
Lake Karakul with Lenin Peak in the distance
The drive to the Tajik border - cold and windy with some snow flurries
We then began to ascend into the Pamirs - this time to the Kyrzl-Art pass, our exit of Tajikistan and the second highest border crossing in the world. Temps continued to drop and winds were so strong that blowing dust was limiting visibility. Once we exited the dust storms, we still noticed blowing particles in the air - it was snowing. We reached the Tajik border crossing, maybe the loneliest border outpost in the world. We were quickly through and from there we had 20 km of descent down mud and gravel roads to reach the Kyrgyz border post. The road really tested the integrity of our refitted sump guard, but it held up to the test. Passing through the Kyrgyz checkpoint, we made our remainder of the drive to the small village of Sary-Tash, a Kyrgyz town on the base of the Alay Mountains. The final portion of the drive was through wide open pastures against a backdrop of clouds enveloping the massive Alay Mountians. We passed several horse herders and other nomadic settlements - a lifestyle I could never imagine.
We checked into a third guesthouse after the first two we tried were full. After an extremely hearty meal of sump, dumplings, and samsa, we talked with some friendly Europeans about how awesome Kyrgyzstan is. While we’re ahead of schedule and plan to use a few extra days in Kyrgyzstan, it’s unfortunate that we can only see a few bits and pieces of this country with our timeline. Tomorrow we head to Osh - FWY
The towering Pamirs from the door of our Sary-Tash guesthouse