Crossing Khargush

We then have our last breakfast prepared by the lady with the beautiful golden teeth smile in Murghob, fire up the thumpers and head south. The valley here is a fairytale and we fly like the eagle.
Where the road is asphalt, the driving is really sketchy due to ridiculously big potholes and waves that throw us around.
A couple kilometers down we turn left into the empty lands to find the Grotto Shakhty petroglyphs, and later the abandoned Soviet star observatory. Without tracking, we still would hang around there.
We continue since the actual plan is to get down to the Wakhan Corridor, so we have a café in the 40 foot container chaikhana in Alichur and leave the M41 to go south. What initially seems to be a normal gravel piste quickly turns in one of these roads that take you 4 hours for 20 km... Heavy corrugation, loose rocks, and deep sand demand heavy efforts, and RidingKismet is collecting bruises for the memories.
Eventually, we arrive then at the military checkpoint near the southern border, where FlyingNick is sharing his cigarettes with some soldiers - again waiting for us for hours... Enough for one day. The soldiers signal us an empty shepherds shack where we hide from the cold wind and have a beautiful evening.
Tomorrow everything will be easier...Read more