Entering the Marco Polo home stay and feeling warm air from a wood stove on my face was a blessing. I met there a Swiss family who was cycling around the Pamirs and, shortly after my arrival, a guy in a motorcycle outfit joined us. His name was Jirka and was very excited to meet me because he had been following my tracks all the way from the Wakhan valley and... he was riding a BMW 1150 GS Adventure. Same bike as mine but ten years older, with the same front and back wheel specs. And believe it or not, he had been carrying spare tires all the way from his home town in the Czech Republic. That was very lucky and Jirka was actually happy to give away some weight, since he was very heavily loaded with spares and tools. At the beginning of his trip, his girlfriend had traveled with him for a couple of weeks, with a total weight on his bike of more than 500kg that he measured at a truck-weighing device. That is probably a record and the main reason why his front suspension had already stopped working. In any case, I felt very relieved because the growing crack on my front tire would not be a showstopper any more.

Jirka left in the early morning but I spent some time taking pictures around the village, where most locals still wear traditional hats and basic white houses stand against a high altitude semi-desert landscape.

When the sun was high enough and the temperature way above zero degrees, I continued driving north on the Pamir Highway. It was a very pleasant ride since the road did not have too many potholes, most of which could be easily avoided, and the air was thin enough for the wind chill not to be too strong when riding fast. From time to time, the solitude of that setting was disturbed when I came across a lonely car or a shepherd herding his yaks, which in fact look like big hairy cows.

The road went up and down, winding left and right, for a couple of hundred kilometers until the town of Murghab was visible in the distance. This is the biggest permanent settlement on the Pamir plateau but would be little more than a village anywhere else in the world.

Right before the town entrance, there was a military checkpoint and the soldiers invited me to lunch: buckwheat with game meat. They said it was a Marco Polo sheep they had hunted themselves but they were probably just showing off. Anyway, the meal was good and I went on to Murghab, asked for the gas station and then... I met the rest of the guys who were actually riding in the opposite direction!

Except Willi, all of them were there: Stuart and Fabian who were supposed to be two days ahead of me, Jani who had taken the good road instead of the Wakhan valley and Jirka who had left Alichur in the morning. We were all genuinely astonished since I did not expect them to be there riding backwards and they did not expect me to make it to Murghab with my cracked tire...

Stuart had nearly lost his voice but, when we stopped at the gas station in Murghab, he managed to explain to me that Willi had crashed two days before when crossing the worst section of the road between the Wakhan valley and the Pamir Highway. After crashing, he spent a couple of hours in a state of shock and Stuart and Fabian did not know exactly what to do. His bike was damaged but not too badly and Willi was also injured but he was conscious and able to walk. For a long time, the only people they saw were a group of Afghan nomads on the other side of the river. Stuart tried to ask for help but they were either scared or did not understand what was going on... anyway, crossing the Afghan border illegally does not sound like a great option...

When they were about to camp for the night, a truck passed by and stopped. It was loaded with a bunch of Peruvian hunters and their support crew, who were willing to help and took them all to their cottage in the mountains. They even loaded Willi's damaged bike on their truck and next morning everybody went to Murghab, took Willi to the local hospital and rested from two crazy days on the road. By the following afternoon, Willi had already sold his bike and was waiting for a taxi service to take him straight to Osh, then fly back home to get treated. Fabian and Stuart were about to continue their trip but Fabian had problems with his tire as well and they spent the whole morning fixing that. During those hours, first Jani, then Jirka and finally me joined the group. They were riding backwards because they wanted to fill their tanks before leaving Murghab and the gas station was before their guesthouse.

The sense of excitement was unbelievable and, against all odds, the five of us went on driving across the Pamirs. The tarmac was awesome after Murghab and we could easily drive at 100 km/h in many sections. Stuart and Fabian went ahead since they had no problems on their bikes, I was in the middle being careful with my tire crack, then Jirka who had no front suspension and finally Jani whose Chinese bike was starting to suffer. An hour drive later, we got to the Ak-Baital mountain pass, the highest point in the Pamir Highway and in my entire journey at 4,655 meters above sea level.

The road was bad over the pass but then it got better again when approaching Lake Karakul and that stony asphalt felt like a racing track for us. By the way, the fence you can see on the left marks the border between Tajikistan and China.

We finally made it to a home stay by Lake Karakul, relaxed by the stove, had a nice dinner and told each other all the stories that had happened before our reunion in Murghab. It was a great unexpected evening worthy of the Prancing Pony, but with bikers instead of dwarves and bikes instead of horses.

The yellow shores of Lake Karakul in the sunset light.

And the colorful designs on the outside of a traditional yurt.

In the morning, we started driving the last section of the Pamir Highway together. It was very cold and Stuart had to stop once to warm up his hands on my bike's heated grips. The road was not too bad but there were dangerous hazards, like a bridge that had completely disappeared. It was dry season and the stream was not carrying water but Fabian did not see the steep ramp and sharp turn at the other end, drove too fast and ended up flying out of the road. No idea how he managed to land on his feet and wheels without falling but he did and got back on the road without problems.

Approaching the mountain pass that divides Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, the road becomes dirt again and the landscape totally barren and devoid of life.

We did all formalities on the Tajik side, which was easy and pretty straightforward, and finally got to the real border. I am not a big fan of group pictures but we had to stop there and take one, next to a big Marco Polo sheep statue.

So we made it...
The rest of the trip going down 4000m in altitude was beautiful and relaxed. I proved that transportation instructor of the Swiss Army wrong by making it to Osh with a crack on my tire, actually taking the more difficult Wakhan valley road. But it was actually getting late in the season, the weather was turning cold in Central Asia and I was still really far from anywhere nice to spend the winter.

I had to start driving west: Destination Sunset.