Extremes and raging rivers

I realise I’m in a valley on the Pamir Highway, it’s not quite what I had in mind, 3 paved lanes in each direction, surrounded by inner city high-rises but this is the M41 and technically the road I’ve ridden over 10,000kms to get to. It’ll get better. I leave the capital heading east into the sunrise as I’m still yet to beat the heat. I know cooler temperatures are coming but I’ve got to get up early and then get up in altitude as they aren’t coming to this City of Dushanbe .

Tajikistan can’t be accused of throwing you in the deep end of the canyon. Coming at the Wakham Valley from this direction, the transition is gradual and that’s just the way I like it. The river rages alongside the road but, I’m to find, this is nothing compared to it’s angry torrent once trapped in a narrow canyon. An equally daunting fence of coiled barred wire reminds me that the other side of this river is Afghanistan. It’s quite novelly at first to be so close and then as this becomes common place I lift a hand and wave at some moped commuters on the other side, and whatta ya know? I get a wave back. It’s such defiance of man-made borders. You governments may be able to make the transition from one country to the other a bureaucratic hurdle, and physical impossibility but you can’t stop us, the people, from exchanging plenaries.

A family stop for a Saturday morning bathe on the other side and they too return my wave. This is brilliant. This alone is exhilerating although only one small factor on this dirt road. These are extremes, this is exactly what I came for, hoped for, and feared might be a parade, but no, it’s just me. Me and the elements. I feel rewarded of all I endured to get here, all the disappointment of screwed up schedule and route has still resulted in my getting to this point and it’s all the more spectacular for it.

One of those big fat Unimog’s is waddling towards me, flashes but it’s not for fun, he stops to tell the road ahead is washed out, unpassable he’s had to turn around. I really though one of the few advantages off those lumbering, fuel guzzling, attention seeking hunks was their ability to go anywhere, that’s certainly the impression they give. Well I’ll not be turning round, no way. But I do stop at the next tiny settlement for extra supplies, to sustain me until the waters subside, or for the return, what ever lies ahead. Not having apps but aptitude, I’m going to see for myself. I probably wouldn’t have done the 200kms that took over 8 hrs in one go if I hadn’t been given this information. A few more trucks over the course of the day come the other way, none make the effort to signal me, nor does the occasional motorcycle, but one old bloke in his 4×4 camper, about my age, stops to fill me in on what he’s heard. He didn’t even get to the crossing, turned around on hearsay alone.  

Isn’t if funny? Alone in my helmet, I suppose much like the cab all those years ago, everything gets considered, analyses, and judgement is made. I’m not saying its accurate but inevitable. I have to assume all the oncoming has turned around due to this washed out road, so why are they not warning me. Are they assuming that I know already and don’t care? In Bulgaria all oncoming cars flash when a speed trap is ahead. All of them, you have it announced, then confirmed and on it goes until you pass the cause for concern. In the US last year I rounded a corner right into a cop with a radar and no one had warned me, I was incredulous. Why would you let me head right into a trap without warning, sadistic bastards, whose side are you on?

Anyway this bloke who wound down his window puts faith back in my fellow road users. You may, form this, get the impression that the road is busy, it is not, 200kms may not sound like much but I’m slowed by choice of bike, surface and ultimately the scenery. I’m in awe of it, and it delivers and exceeds my expectations. I’m frequently, mostly in fact, all alone and that’s how I like to witness this planet. No signs of human impact and no humans impacting on my solitary tranquillity. That’s why, when the occasionally lifeform does come the other way I expect some sort of acknowledgement. On average it’s one every two hours. There are tiny villages, kids align themselves for a passing high five, and that’s the extent of the human contact. There is the occasion Chinese truck and a surprising number of electric cars. I’m mean there is nothing out here, they are imported personally from China driven across the border to avoid charges, there’s certainly nowhere to charge them here. So desolate is the word, and that’s why every vehicle is remarkable there is little else.

Its hard to explain. These views, this feeling, the exhilaration of the location, the slight angst of what I’ve been warned of ahead, the knowing I have enough supplies to survive independently for a few days. These are the ingredients that take my life to the very point of existence. I never feel so alive, all senses on high stimulation, as when I find myself in such uninhabited places. It stirs the ‘nomadic warrior on the edge of time’ in me, and there is one in me, if you’ve read ‘I should have left the whiskey’ you’ll know what spawned it too. So here I am, on the edge of Afghanistan and not so far from China, on the edge of my riding abilities, on the edge of my survival capacity, and on the edge of a canyon too. You could said say I’m feeling a bit on edge, but in all the best ways. Compared with the distance I’ve come to get here; this is not a long road but compared to a cross-continent artery this is infinite.

The old silk road route. If I were a camel riding trader the money I made at market would be secondary, I’d be all about the journey. When I consider the romance of that past culture as my single cylinder putts along at low revs, I realise that short of buying a camel I’m doing the best I can with my loaded conveyance of supplies to put myself back in that time.

As the shadows start to get longer I come to the most extreme part of the track. I have to traverse steep, dirt, washboard, inclines with hairpins that are carved into a cliff. I was already exhausted and this is excruciating. I can’t drop it here, I have to stay upright. I takes every last bit of power I have in me to negotiate this near unnavigable route. It keeps going up, another 180 degrees turn another increase in altitude and finally this sweating depleted jockey of desperation reaches a plateau. Snow Capped mountains surround me and there is bugger all anywhere. That was worth the climb, not that I had any choice. A deserted check point where I catch my breath and point my phone and the vastness. There is no signal not been one for ages. No point in holding it up another meter, aint gonna make no difference. I show my papers to a lonesome guard and am waved through.

Where I wonder is this bloody washed-out road? Did I miss it? he didn’t mention it. I don’t quite recall the sequence of events as the overstimulation of the day had filled all allotted memory. However, at one point I wind down a gully and there it is. The blatant torrent that flows with boulder rolling force down the valley. Oh yeah that would be it.

I expected to see a few vehicles, a posse of the overland challenged, but no, nothing. I get down to the river’s edge, raging it is, passing over some large diameter pipes that on calmer days I suppose it’s designed to flow through. It’s uncrossable, unthinkable, I would even step in it, I’d get swept away for sure.

But due to the day I’ve had and perhaps the forewarning, I’m not daunted, not disappointed, no perturbed. I will deal with this predicament, someone will come along, someone has to. Anyway it’s evening now and I put up my tent, wash carefully at the water’s edge and have a little food. Then as this deafening flood forces it way down the canyon I sleep next to the rushing water white noise, knowing this is exactly why I came, what I wanted, if not, what I will do next.   

Thanks as ever for the ‘coffee’ donations, strangely not much choice in beverage out here.