“OMG” What a days driving!

We started the day from Khorugh with expectation with more of the day before with the mountains slightly lower and the valley a bit wider in the bottom.

Well that was it for the first 50K of the 230k drive to Khala-i-Khumb our overnight stay. The river had got wider and was flowing with less vigour. This was all only to lull us in a calm easy day of mildly rough roads.

Then “OMG”, the best way too describe it is the rock changed form soft rock to hard Rock and the walls of the valley just started to stand up to almost vertical at times on both sides with the tops nearly 1000 metres above us. The farming vanished totally from the Tajik side with only small pocket on the Afghan side. At the same time as all this was happening with the sides the river stated to head seriously down hill and for the next 180 kilometres the river was an endless set of wild rapids. This tight canyon continued on for the best part of 80 k of this with it just opening and closing on and off over the rest of the trip. The canyon was that tight and deep at time we were losing satellite reception for our GPS’s.

The 230k drive took a full 8.5 hour of driving time due to the condition of the road and the truck that use the road as a route from the capital to China.

At one stage of the day Frank and a truck had a little scrap together as the truck wanted all the road and frank couldn’t get any closer to the cliff. The truck was totally in the wrong as when we arrived we drove around the outside of him as he was well on franks side. The driver however gave Frank 150 Somoni for the damage, which is about $25AUD so a bit short, but all he was going to get.

The amazing thing with the farms on the Afghan side of the river was that most had no road access just a donkey track along the river and cut in to the cliff face to trave from community to community. Some of this cliff side track you need a good head for heights and skinny ledges.

The drive down this gorge made the trip into Tiger Leaping Gorge pale into distant memories and sort if overpowers all the great gorge drives I’ve been lucky enough to do in the past.

I’ve driven longer rough roads in the past but not with the sort of backdrop of this one.

The day ended at this absolutely glorious home stay. We where served the best homestay spread dinner at an outside eating area. Everyone was disappointed for the hosts as we could not do the meal justice and finish it due to the amount and variety we were served.

The sleeping arrangements consisted of mattress’s on the floor in three rooms a bit like a school camp including Frank starting a pillow fight at bed time.

I have included many photos but I’m sorry that I can’t convey in Photos what is in my heart from yesterday.