Day 42: Jalal-Abad
After getting our clutch fixed in Murghab we made for the border, and crossed the 22km of mountain pass no man's land that led to Kyrgyzstan in the middle of a blizzard at night! Arrived safely in Jalal-Abad ready for the next leg of our trip!
Day 39: Murghab
After a brief respite in Khorog we tackled the Shokdhara valley, a detour to a flooded section of the Pamir highway. Following a good start, we then spent an entire day crawling along the 25km Maisara pass to rejoin the main highway, in a journey that involved rebuilding disused bridges, removing huge boulders from fords and generally forcing our tiny cars up and down mountain passes even 4x4s were finding difficult. The terrain killed our clutch, meaning we had to be towed the next 170km to Murghab by a friendly Tajik lorry driver in return for a couple packets of cigarettes!
Day 35: Khorog
Following a couple days spent in Dushanbe we started to tackle the Pamir highway. After some friendly encounters with the GBAO border patrol, a visit to Qal'ai Khumb cross-border market and miles of difficult road, we made it safely to Khorog.
Day 31: Dushanbe
Crossed the mountains from Khujand to Dushanbe over some unbelievable roads before camping beside a lake for the night. Got into Dushanbe the next day where we stayed at a hostel and made our preparations for the Pamir highway.
Day 29: Samarkand and crossing into Tajikistan
Arrived the night before and stayed in a hostel. Spent the day looking around the city a bit before making our way to the border.
Day 27: Crossing into Uzbekistan
Made the border crossing from Turkmenistan into Uzbekistan and camped for the night in the desert.
Day 25: Ashgabat
An interesting day to say the least! Spent the morning gate-crashing a Sofiteli 5 star hotel for a wash and some wifi, followed by an afternoon fitting a sump guard with a 'mechanic' we found on the street, and playing football with a group of 30 to 40 children! Drove through the night to see the Door to Hell.
Day 23: Getting into Turkmenistan
Six hours spent going back and forth between seven different desks carrying out no less than sixteen different processes, just for getting two people and a car into the country for only five days!
Day 22: Sailing on a ferry!
Finally sailing across the Caspian Sea and left Azerbaijan behind us!
Day 21: Getting on a ferry!
A very stressful day of filling out paperwork and handing over money later, we finally got on the ferry in the early hours of Sunday morning.
