Pamir Highway (2)

If the first part of our Pamir Highway tour was about high altitude passes, the theme of the second section has been: 🇦🇫⛰️🏰

🇦🇫: We've been driving along the Wakhan Corridor, Tajikistan's long southern border with Afghanistan. This was a thin strip of land ceded to the Emir of Afghanistan in the 1890s, to act as a buffer just a few kilometres wide between the Russian Empire (now Tajikistan) and the British Raj (now Pakistan). The border follows the Panj river valley, and the road on the Tajik side is a complete death trap. We are very grateful for driver Salih's experienced hand, even if he does sometimes send WhatsApp messages while navigating tight corners at the top of cliffs. It is also, however, the most stunning road we've ever driven. The austerity of the high mountain passes has given way to a much more vibrant river valley, and we're here just in time to see all the trees changing to beautiful autumn colours. The rocks that have been carved over centuries by the river Panj are striated like marble, and the gorge itself is vast and uncompromisingly jagged. Hard to capture in photos, but we've done our best!

⛰️: Along this route we've been on a couple of hikes, with the big one taking us to the viewpoint at the base of Mount Engels. Keen-eyed readers may notice a pattern in mountain names, as we previously went to Mount Lenin. There is also Peak Karl Marx nearby. Before Tajikistan's independence, the Pamir range included all the tallest peaks in the Soviet Union. The tallest (now known as Ismoil Somoni Peak) was previously called Communism Peak, and before that Stalin Peak 😳 the mountains also produce natural hot springs, two of which we've been able to visit in the last couple of days (#blessed). Extremely welcome after long hikes and limited showers.

🏰: The Wakhan Corridor is dotted with military structures, ranging from ancient stone castles to crumbling Soviet outposts to modern checkpoints. We've visited a couple of of crumbling 2nd century forts overlooking the valley, had our visas checked by a bunch of soldiers, and seen countless stone bunkers for the modern Tajik military. This has always been an important geopolitical valley, and continues to be strategically important with Taliban-controlled Afghanistan right across the river for hundreds of kilometres. That said, at one of the castles a local man draped Dan in some traditional Afghan clothing for a photoshoot and kept saying 'Taliban, Taliban', as well as offering him a plastic Kalashnikov as a photo prop... so at least they have a sense of humour about it 🤷‍♂️Baca lagi