Day 7 cycle 77 km 6hr20
Away at 7.45am for which was going to be another tough day. It was a slow climb all day.
We were invited in for morning tea at a summer dwelling. This was warm yak milk, bread and butter, all made in this tiny stone building. We were able to buy some bread off them for our lunch. Yak dung surrounded the place and was drying on top of the walls. This was their fuel for the fire. We continued on with the track becoming less obvious and varying in quality and speed for us. After 4 and half hours we had travelled about 38 km and stopped for lunch. Not a great place to stop but some shelter from the cold head wind. It was near the Zorkul lakes but we couldn’t see them.
From the bikes we’ve had lovely views across the lakes to the 6000m Afgan Wakhan Range. It’s a very wide valley but feels more like a plateau with mountains one side and ranges the other. From here the Afgan border heads south and we won’t be near it again until we return to Khorog. I was finding today particularly tough. A combination of being at 4000m, 7th day of cycling and I wasn’t cycle fit to start with, rough roads and a slow constant uphill, and I got too cold at one point when small hale or sleet fell. We set off again at 1pm and the track became less distinct. We had to push our bikes over many small streams. We took the wrong route at one stage but luckily only for a few hundred metres. I was counting down the kilometres to go. The final climb for the day was steep up to a pass at 4430m but then came the long cold downhill. This opened up another flat area and amazing views south to the Wakhan Range.
Finally we made it to our “hotel” at 5pm. This area has some thermal hot springs.
The hotel does have a hot pool and they filled it for us but it will need to cool down; maybe in the morning we may get a soak. At least we had a sulphur smelling warm mandi. Plov for dinner. A German couple staying here also.
Stock returning for night. Dung drying on the wall tops for stove fuel
Rick's travels 