The Pamir Highway winds 900km from the Tajik capitol, Dushanbe to Osh in the northern neighbouring country of Kyrgyzstan. In the process it skirts the sensitive border with Afghanistan before spending most of its length at 4000 metres through the rugged and remote Pamir Mountains. Some sources actually suggest that the highway really starts in the Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif and goes through Termez in Uzbekistan then to Dushanbe. With what I have already done I have that covered.
The highway sees little traffic and has a minimum of habitation along the way so for this section of my adventure I have booked a jeep, driver and guide through Pamir Guides a company I have found on line. It is a leap of faith as there are no reviews of any of the companies offering Pamiri tours. I am relieved to meet with my guide who is the owner of the company Saidali and the driver Ismail who both turn out to be excellent!
After 3 weeks solo travel I am to be joined by Anthony who flies in just before midnight. I am waiting in the tin shed that passes for the arrival hall in Dushanbe International Airport. The flight is late and I have an anxious 1 hour wait until he finally emerges. Officially as he had an LOI he was entitled to a visa on arrival at the airport. Unofficially the relevant consular official is only there consistently for Turkish Airline flights and spasmodically for any others. Sure enough he wasn’t there and it took the intervention of an arriving Canadian Tajik to rouse him and have the applications processed.
The road south of Dushanbe is amazingly good for central Asia and our little jeep cruises for the first 3 hours. We stop at the little archaeological site at Hulbuk with excavations revealing a bronze age palace and artefacts. Not long after this the road degenerates into a rough 4WD track. The countryside becomes increasingly mountainous and when we reach the Panj River which is the border with Afghanistan the narrow track now hugs the Tajik mountainside precariously over the grey fast flowing murky glacial river. Our eyes are drawn continuously to the “forbidden” Afghan side for glimpses of life and activity in this dangerous and blighted country. For the next 2 days the rugged Panj gorge is our constant companion.
