Khorog to Osh

The first thing we noticed about being east of Khorog was that most of the annoying children were finally gone. Also less cars meant less honking. Over the course of three days we climbed from about 2100m to 3500m, taking it slowly because after the first pass there wasn't any easy way to turn back in the event of altitude sickness.

At the top of the first pass:

We made a detour to Bulunkul to look at a lake, and we stayed at a homestay there that had no electricity. On the road we also met two of the cyclists who had left Khorog to head through the Wakhan valley.

A few more days of nothing too eventful towards murgab. We were getting tired of the generally awful yogurt, bread, and tea meals that everyone was serving us, as well as sometimes uninspired rice or pasta with a single piece of meat.

We met up with a bunch of other cyclists in Murgab and had dinner and proper showers and a bit of rest. 

Lenin statue:

Leaving Murgab we detoured towards some lakes for a peaceful lunch before camping at the foot of the highest pass on this trip.

The top of Ak Baital pass, at 4655m. Every peak with snow on it is generally above 5000m:

A bit further down:

We again met up with some of the same cyclists in a Karakul homestay to rest a bit. The day we were going to leave I was a bit sick, so I waited an extra day before heading over the last two passes to leave Tajikistan. 

We had two days of terrible headwind bringing some very cold weather and lots of dust and even snow as we made our way to Sary Tash.

We then spent the next two days with two high passes and nothing but headwind, but we dropped from 3200m to about 1200 by following the Gulcha river valley into Osh. On the way up, some of the trucks were moving slow enough we were able to hold on for a free ride up a few hundred meters.

Osh had great cheap food and was nice to rest in for a few days. There was even a pizza place.