After a 24 hours back breaking ride with the local transport, where the driver decided to have a nap just after 20 hours of driving non-stop, we happily made it to Khorog, the main city along the Pamir Highway .
Just looking around you can see why the locals call this area “The roof of the world”.Impressive snowed peaks everywhere will be our travel companions for the next few days. Transportation in this area it's quite hard to get and very overpriced, due to not really clever tourist, coming in here for a short holidays and paying the outrageous amounts of money that they ask for, just for taking you from A to B, and not thinking that the normal salary in here goes around the 30 USD per month.Not willing to pay those sums that will for sure crumble our budget for the rest of our trip, we decide for the “always” working way of sticking our thumps out and hope for the best.
Unfortunately many drivers in Tajikistan do not believe in free rides for tourists, and after a few changes of car and paying small sums of money we made to the next significant town, Jelandy, which is already 4000m high and no more than ten houses can be counted…
A perfect stop for truck drivers, called Sanatorium, famous for having hot springs in their installations, will be the perfect spot to treat ourselves after a nice but hard to breath trek in the surrounding mountains.
Next morning, after the always working watery coffee that they serve for breakfast, you can go to the triple pit toilet to have a dump, where after the first embarrassing moments can be the perfect place to start a morning conversation with the other two people already there.
That same day we get to know some of the locals, whose offer us some food and tea after observing us sitting, waiting, wishing for a car passing with enough space and willing to take us.“Tomorrow Insh’allah” is what they say to us, so after spending another night soaking in the thermal baths we manage to get a “cheap” ride through an impressive scenery , where no vegetation can be seen, only rocks, snows, marmots and nomad yurts along the way to Murgab, our next destination.
2 comments:
The image and the title are perfect... just makes someone wonder and ponder... I love it...
that you believed in superstitions... hey! I hope everything is allright, you looks thinner in the last pictures, maybe i need to sent you some tortilla..
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