Warning: this post is different from all previous ones.
It is not about what happened but about who was there. It is an introduction to the Pamir Highway Adventure and what kind of people I shared it with. They come from different countries but have many features in common, most importantly their wanderlust and desire to undertake new challenges. And challenges we did find, as you will eventually get to know...Let me first introduce Stuart, an Englishman who did not have enough rain in his homeland and decided to move to Bergen, Norway, many years ago. I met him in Bukhara by chance and we kept in touch to do the Pamirs together. We met again in Dushanbe but just for one night because I had to obtain my GBAO (Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast = Pamirs) permit and he preferred to drive on to Khorog and wait for me there. Here you can see him enjoying the warmth of a traditional yurt at tea time, just like home.

Next comes Fabian, another biker from the north. He drove his bike from Stockholm, Sweden, to Central Asia and I met him at the governmental office in Dushanbe where people apply for their GBAO permit. That office is the main travelers hub in town, since most people have to go there at least twice to travel to the Pamirs. It was funny that we were wearing the same motorcycle outfits but in a different color... his is blue and mine is red. Same as our bikes, which proves that bikers also have a sense of dressing and color combination.

The third biker I want to introduce today is Jani, born in Kazakhstan but currently living in Moscow. He was travelling together with Fabian in Dushanbe and I met both at the same office, while waiting for our permits. He made it across the Pamirs, against all odds, with a Chinese bike that he had to fix almost every day. A real rider of the steppes, he contributed to enlarge the English vocabulary with expressions like 'fuck-talk' and 'cow-man'.

Now it is time for Jirka, a Czech solo biker I met at a home stay in the Pamirs. He was riding another BMW GS and carrying lots of tools, gear and spares. When he was travelling with his girlfriend in Europe, he probably broke a bike weight record with over 500kg total... but I was very glad to see that he had carried a spare front tire all the way from home. You will learn why in the next post. For the moment, you can see him on the left, posing with the owner of the home stay and somebody else you should recognize if you made it this far in the blog.

Last but not least, Willi. A German veteran who rode all the way from Europe with Stuart and that I also met in Bukhara, then again in Dushanbe and Khorog. If you are wondering why his bike looks like shit, that is not his bike but Fabian's. At that time his bike looked even worse...

What happened with those bikes? Why is Jirka's spare front tire on my seat? What is Jani fixing in the middle of the road? Whose yurt is Stuart drinking tea in?
The answers to all those questions in the next post!