The Wakhan Valley

The reason those two days were so significant lay 300 miles away at the Kyzyl-Art pass between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Due to covid and longstanding territorial disputes stemming from the dissolution of the USSR, nobody had crossed the pass in three years. That is, until @thepacktrack found a way. With their guidance, I’d spoken with all the right people, but tensions were rising and I was ready to make a sprint for it if need be. But in Khorog we learned that fighting had broken out and the border was closed - for real. So I decided that I would slow down, enjoy the scenery, and perhaps things would cool off in time.

Khorog is the jumping off point for the Pamirs. From here you can go three ways: 1) the Pamir Highway itself, a “paved” road which takes a more or less direct route to Murghab, 2) the Bartang Valley, the most challenging route, but also the most beautiful, or 3) the Wakhan Valley, the most circuitous path, which continues alongside Afghanistan and the Panj River for another 175 miles. 

We were interviewed by a news channel, and they made us smile and say “Badakhshan: the field of friendship." We headed out, dodging potholes obscured by the dappled light filtering through the smoldering yellow and burnt umber foliage of birch trees in autumn. I stopped for the evening, and Na carried on.

Back on the road, past the farmers harvesting hay, beyond the echoes of braying donkeys, the massive snow capped peaks of the Hindu Kush revealed themselves. To think, I'd not heard of this magical place until a few months earlier. And if I could just leap 10 miles over the Wakhan Corridor, I would be in Pakistan, where the riders who had made it through Iran were now continuing onward (the barrier they now face is the closure of Myanmar).

After a couple days the road turned into bone rattling washboard, and then into a steep, rocky ascent to the Khargush pass that Na warned me was the “no more mercy road.” It wasn’t so bad, but after I made it to flatter ground and hit a dip, my top case came flying off. All of that punishment had ground down the latch. At least I saw it happen - I wasn’t so lucky the next time my valuables went airborne.