By Trudy

Pamir Highway

Before leaving, Dirk sacrificed a tire from the Model T with another tire. I hope we don’t have to do this so often and that we can ride on our tires for a while longer.

It took a while to get all the paperwork for this route on the Pamir Highway, but it was worth all the wait and effort. I am making this report after the days on the highway because there was no opportunity to do this earlier. It is difficult to describe what we have seen, felt, experienced and experienced.

It was really beautiful and unbelievably beautiful. I have written before that words are not enough to describe all this. Now I’m doing it with many photos and hope you can enjoy them. What I certainly have to say is that the road was bad or very bad. I could look around me, but Dirk had to look and steer very carefully to avoid all the holes. I took pictures and talked about everything there was to see. Lots of high mountains.

The globe on the radiator wobbled a lot. It is our mascot, which Inge, our daughter-in-law, made for us. So we handle it with care.

On again.

What a strange sound. Our rear tire is finished.

Another one on and on again.

The Pamir Highway is beautiful. The men are beaming and enjoying themselves.

We spend the night in a family house. All luxury is lacking, but the people are sweet, give us food and warmth. Literally and figuratively.

We spend the night at the hot springs and can relax there in the hot water and it is good for everything. There are people who specifically bathe there for a few days.

It’s getting greener.

Dirk’s back, neck and actually his entire body are stuck. Ger has big strong hands and massages as best he can.

It seems like just a Sunday morning ride.

Then we finally arrive in a city and can arrange money and groceries here.

We can move on again.

Eat a sandwich along the way.

Along the river and then there is a thunderstorm. Take shelter quickly in a nice place.

It’s beautiful.

There are road works. Tomorrow we want to start driving at 6 am to get as far as possible. In the evening, the T-Ford is prepared for the day ahead.

We drive away early without tea, coffee or breakfast. But it wasn’t that bad because after 3 hours of driving!!!! We went for breakfast with cookies. Just quickly and then on again.

So we had already made quite a bit of progress when we arrived at the first barrier.

We were able to continue after half an hour.

Then we got to the real impeachment. We waited there for 3 hours and when we thought we could continue driving we all had to go back.

Stones, large and small boulders rolled towards the road. It was dangerous to drive there. Waiting until it became quiet again on the rock. Then we were allowed to proceed carefully. Dirk made me jump into the LandRover. That way I was safe, but Dirk had to go too. We waited for him after the rock and that took a while. Finally I saw him coming. He had had the fright of his life. A large boulder fell right in front of the T-Ford. Fortunately he stopped in time. We made it!

We continue on a better road with asphalt, but we have to pay attention to the cattle.

After a night in the roof tent, Dirk sees that the spare axles are sticking out of the tube. How lucky we are that we didn’t lose it.

But as you can see, the rainbow does not give us a pot of gold, but it has brought us luck. We still have the axles.

The T-Ford won’t start, it’s drowned. Ger pulls it up with the LandRover and off we go again. Our challenge for today is to arrive in Dushanbe. We go uphill and downhill. Around mountains, along rivers and a lake. See heavily packed cars driving towards us. They must have been doing some shopping in town. We are going in the right direction.

And then we are there. We had a wonderful and very special trip with Ger and Wim. Our technical team. We enjoyed it.