The third farewell and best wishes were made. The group of cyclists gathered at Vero’s had reached 12. We joked about my tent being eaten by the turtle and took more photos. Finally, after 3 nights in Dushanbe I find myself on my way to the Pamir Mountains with a new cycling partner – Reece.
We had all heard of each other.
‘Ah – you are the Australian who got held up at the Iranian border.’
They had heard of me through Monique – a French cyclist they had met, and who I had met twice – in Bukhara and in Samarqand. I met ‘the’ Swiss couple and the Belgian couple. Each had already heard the other’s stories from this closed group of Pamir cyclists.
Reece and I set off, not realising that the road climbed and climbed and climbed. We thought that happened 100km later. The mountains are just starting now, and we have an amazing camping spot next to a bendy river. Fed and cleaned (by the water fight we had in the river), we are ready for bed.