Near Anzob Pass

After enjoying an experimental porridge mixture of rice, fresh cheese & sugar I set off towards the mighty Anzob Pass. At 3307m it has no peer in Europe, though it's not particularly high by the standards of Eastern Tajikistan. Add an awful road on the side that I climbed & you have a monster.

The Pass is but 1 of 2 3000m giants on the main Kokand-Dushanbe highway. Like all the roads I've traveled on in Tajikistan it was terrible. I can appreciate that a country as cash-strapped at Tajikistan is not able to build 1st World standard roads. These poor roads contribute to the cost of transportation that makes everything expensive by comparison with Uzbekistan & thus to the absolute level of poverty in the country. I can't help feel sorry for the country. During their time as part of the Soviet Union their strategic location ensured plenty of subsidies from Moscow, in 1991 they lost all of this & became 1 of the poorest countries in the World in a stroke. I'm sure that the endemic corruption contributes to their economic condition.

Back to the Anzob Pass road. The highway followed gorges for most of the length that I took. A totally untamable wild river that I would imagine would present quite a rafting or canoeing challenge ran parallel to the road. Vertical rock faces shot up hundreds of metres on either side. I couldn't spend to much time while riding to marvel at the landscape, the condition of the road demanded almost all my attention. 500m below the top of road there was a spring from which naturally sparking mineral water emerged, rather foolishly I filled both water bottles plus a pair of 1 1/2 litre bottles I use when passing through dry countryside. There was water aplenty here & I was carrying nearly 5kg of water! To rub in the point one of the 1 1/2 litre bottles full of this water fell off my bike unnoticed after I carried it over the pass. The pass was too high to use as the soul goal. I stopped for a short pause every 100m gained & was pleasantly surprised how quickly it seemed to arrive, though I didn't get to the top until 7pm. The view from the top was something to savour, a line of 4500m mountains with the wonderful light of the late afternoon.

The top had plenty of camping opportunities but I thought it might be too high so dropped down hoping to find something about 500m higher than the previous night's spot (2200m). I passed up a spot a 2800m because I didn't have water to cook (I wanted to save the mineral water for drinking) & ended out spending the night at 2400m, which is the highest altitude at which I've slept (excepting on flights).

I cycled 93 km in 9 hours & 9 minutes
Total so far 7010 km in 102 days
GPS Coordinates of end point - N 39°3.812, E 68°51.455