The Pamir Highway in the Pamir-Alai mountains of Central Asia is the second highest road in the world. If you are going to cycle it, there are a few things you’ll need: a bike that can handle frame re-arranging roads; a body supple enough to bend with each frame re-arranging rut; a spirit that scoffs at extreme altitudes and temperatures; and a gastro-intestinal system made of concrete. Also handy is a life supply of water, vast reserves of baby wipes, an-easy-to-erect-in-the-wind tent, and a laissez-faire attitude towards warm beer and bucket showers. It speaks to the young and the adventurous, and, at age 62, it called my name.
The Pamir Highway, through the highest and desolate reaches of the legendary Silk Road in the Central Asian countries of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, promises the epic and the unknown, and each year, more and more cyclists are attracted to its mythic appeal.
The cosmopolitan city of Almaty, Kazakhstan, at the easternmost point of the Pamir-Alai mountains, has become the major staging post for cycling overlanders. It offers an array of supplies needed before launching into the 2,500 kilometre journey across the Celestial and Pamir Mountains. Self-sufficiency is key in the Pamirs as accommodations are scarce, campgrounds non-existent, and shops or restaurants a lucky sighting. And, where the mountains are at their highest, you need to prepare for freezing temperatures at any time of year.
If you aren’t one of the plucky young Europeans loading up your bike for a solo cross-continental odyssey, you likely have chosen a tour with a support van, a chef, a bike mechanic and an emergency medic. Those in our coveted “geezer tour,” as we affectionately began to refer to our TDA Global Cycling tour, chose the latter option.
With an average age of 60, and a fleet of cyclists that grows to 30 on the Pamir, we take comfort in knowing that ascents into 5,000-metre altitudes will not have to be done on bikes draped with a mountain of supplies. All of us setting forth will become a fraternity of cyclists on the road nonetheless, with bike gear and faces caked in the same road dust, summits celebrated with equal zest, and offers of water and spirits by the locals received with the same humility. Slow travelling on the Pamir comes with a community of support.
Our first days on the road through Kyrgyzstan are gentle, wending through endless grazing land, hills billowing like soft dunes around us. It appears barren and unutilized, but you are told it’s a land that has nurtured successions of nomadic clans. The people are given 49-year leases to the land, and move freely between valleys, seeking better pastures, or pamirs, for their livestock.
The settlements we encounter sport a few yurts, caravans, cars and livestock – usually yak, sheep or goats. Young herdsmen on horses are often close by, guiding flocks across riverbeds and roads to fresh pasture. Excited children call out to us as we pass, and if they reach the roadside in time, they form a gauntlet of hands that high-five us as we pass by.
Older Kyrgyz men at the side of the road, in their traditional white stovepipe felt hats (known as ak kalpak), gaze at us with faces a thousand stories deep, while the women corral the horses for milking and producing the reputed manna of the region – kumis (fermented mare’s milk). Homestays, where a farm may include a yurt that is more elaborately furnished and decorated for guests, occasionally give us reprieve from the nightly ritual of unfurling our tents and sleeping mats.
We soon learn, in addition to its staggeringly vast and painterly landscape, what distinguishes the Pamir Highway from all others. It is the wretchedness of the road. A project of the Russians in 1929 – to build a strategic supply route through the Pamirs – it is still a main national road through the centre of Asia and Tajikistan but suffers from years of neglect. Eroded pavement, potholes the size of crevices, and ruts that roll into an endless washboard of jagged bone-jarring rock is standard “surfacing” for this road.
One moves through the Pamir Highway with the stealth of a jackhammer, hoping that bike and body will forgive you for the abuse. You pray you will not be thrown off by a sudden dip in the road when a car passes by. And when the road narrows and uncoils in paroxysms of twists and turns down a mountain, you know that’s when you’ll meet one of the road-swallowing trucks that grind their way through the Pamirs. You hang on.
The mountains rise and the column of cyclists grows denser as you cross into Tajikistan. When you reach Sary-Tash, the last Kyrgyz outpost before the Tajikistan border, suddenly the snow-capped Pamirs overwhelm the sky in front of you, and the audacity of what you are doing strikes you.
There will be six mountain passes to climb (the highest, Ak Baital Pass, cresting at 4,665 metres), each one getting you successively higher into the Pamirs. As we will be camping for over a week at an altitude of over 3,500 metres, our first two days of cycling into the Pamirs will be short ones, in order to allow us to slowly acclimatize to the quickly increasing altitudes. Many of us pop Diamox – an altitude medication – at regular intervals, to ensure our bodies are finding the oxygen needed to manage the punishing ascents.
Climbing into the Gorno-Badakhsan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan, the harshness of the high alpine country is not lost on us. Considered the poorest of “the stans,” the people of Tajikistan, and particularly the Pamiri people, are still dealing with the devastating economic consequences of the country’s civil war in 1992.
A middle-class family is the one who has five yaks and a lean-to; the wealthy enjoy luxuries – toilets, refrigeration, electricity and wifi – that we consider essentials. There are no excesses here; you can see it in the wiriness of the people. The weight of a well-fed man in Tajikistan is 120 pounds.
There is an asceticism to the Tajikistan landscape, as well. Now at the summit of the Silk Road, we are perched on a high altiplano, the mountains and desert an unbroken sweep of jagged rock and sky. Apart from some breathlessness, you forget the altitude you scaled to reach this desert at the Roof of the World. It isn’t until we begin our dramatic descent into the Khorog valley, 2,500 kms from Almaty, where we are able to look back and gasp at the immensity of stone and wonder we had cycled and lived in for so long.
And for the geezers on the tour, you knew that sense of awe was one part for the road, and one part for the mission we had accomplished. Realizing we were living out the adage “you’re never too old to become younger,” we hurl ourselves down into the valley where a shower and a celebratory night of music awaits.
For IF YOU GO information, visit www.seniorlivingmag.com/articles/pamir-highway
IF YOU GO:
If you are up for epic bike rides, TDA Global Cycling, based in Toronto,
offers cross-continental tours around the world. The Pamir Highway is
a month-long section of their Silk Route tour, from Beijing to Istanbul.
Riders can begin in Almaty, Kazakhstan, or Osh, Kyrgyzstan via flights
from Istanbul with Turkish Airlines or from Frankfurt with Lufthansa.
Overlanding is also popular on the Pamir Highway; a number of
tour companies offer pre-arranged 7-day tours, or drivers. A tour, which
includes neighbouring Uzbekistan and mythical cities of Samarkand and
Bukhara, is also highly recommended. See Uzbekistan Adventure with
Intrepid Travel.
https://tdaglobalcycling.com/silk-route
https://www.intrepidtravel.com
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Great post 😀