Samarqand to Dushanbe (4/X); 8th June
8th June
We woke up at 6:30 to try and climb over Anzob Pass. Omar and his wife brought out breakfast — bread, coffee, and warmed up milk from the cow -- Omar's wife had woken up at 4am to milk the cows again.
As we are packing up to leave Omar's wife gently reminds us not to forget anything by pointing to her pockets. MayLyn offered her 100 som, but she vigorously refuses, pointing to the food and I can only assume she was saying it was not much to host us. The previous night we had handed over the ten eggs and large bar of chocolate bought earlier in the day, which was accepted.
We said goodbye and took some photos together. They were a very warm couple who made us feel very comfortable and welcome in their home, simply because we were visitors.
We set off for the pass. Omar had advised us to use the tunnel instead. But the pass is a high one, at 3400 M, and as it’s no longer maintained, not really used. The possibility of mountain view’s on a quiet road with no cars was too good to pass up.
The climb up was very challenging. Mainly loose gravel, and towards the top, some rockfall which meant we had to push. Average moving speed of about 5/kmh.
The views were beautiful. We passed a young shepherd riding a donkey, and some shepherds whistled at on the way up, but apart from that we were totally on our own.
We passed two relics -- a crumbling structure which I am guessing was a bus stop back when the pass was the only road north out of Dushanbe, and a small concrete hut -- as we passed the hut, I felt an affinity with the the guy Sebastian, who's blog I had read in preparing to cross the pass -- he had been climbing in bad weather and had taken shelter in the hut -- we were climbing in perfect weather, but I can easily imagine how difficult it was for him considering he was cycling in a snowstorm.
Unfortunately, about 2KM from the top, the road was packed with snow, making it impassable on a bike. A small part of me considered trying to push the bike over, but this would have been a really stupid idea, as the snow was likely to get more packed for the remainder of the climb. A bit disappointing, but we had to turn back.
After passing through Anzob village again, we re-entered the red canyon, where we were also chased by a vicious dog which bared its teeth as it ran alongside us. We'd thought about saying hello to Omar, but decided against it -- Tjalling, David and Pierre were still in Dushanbe so during the descent we decided we'd try and make it there the same day.
We got to the bottom where the road met the main road and started putting out hand out fit trucks or vans in order to their a lift.
After about 20 mins a red van stopped. I ran up and said ‘Dushanbe?’ And he said ‘Dushanbe, yes’. We stuck the bike in the back alongside some loose vegetables he was carrying and squeezed next to a father and son in the front two seats, who had gotten a lift from Aini.
The drive up to the tunnel was legitimately terrifying. My hands were clenched for most of it as the guy careered and veered round the road overtaking trucks with very little space -- often oncoming cars would have to slow down to let us rejoin the lane after an overtake -- but the driver was very relaxed -- I guess he's done this many times before.
A relieved father and son got off just before the tunnel, pointing up the mountain, indicating this is where they lived. We drove thrguh the tunnel, passed some tolls, passed the Presidential Palace with some very opulent looking houses.
He drove us all the way to Dushanbe. We cycled about 5km to the Green House Hostel where we met Pierre, David and Tjalen again and exchanged stories of the last couple of days.
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