Day 176 (Tajikistan): Dushanbe - where the road makes a U-turn after Nurek (this is much steeper than you may think)

daily distance: 70km
total distance: 10,429km
riding time: 5h

I really did leave Dushanbe today. Finally. Really, out of there. Not until noon though. The two hours I had planned on spending updating the website and burn some DVDs turned out to be 4 and so I set out midday only.

And for the most part, the ride was pretty uneventful. Out of Dushanbe was a no-brainer as long as you keep going straight after that traffic circle and ignore the police man that whistles after you for no reason.

Then you hang a hard right and you’re in open territory. And then the uphill starts. I hadn’t thought it would be that much of an uphill and felt that it would never end. It’s the bad thing when you have no real clue as to altitude coming up. You don’t know what to expect. And it was long and steep.

I was out of water until I came upon an apple stand where payment was refused and after seeing that I got three apples an old lady loaded three pears on top of that. When I sat down a bit later to have a go at some of the fruit a truck driver stopped and gave me a pommegranate … just like that.

On the top of the pass there wasn’t much of a view, but the downhill was exhilarating and brought me to Nurek soon enough. Looking at the picture now, I am totally spoiled. The view was great …

From there I continued some more kms and found a spot to pitch or so I thought. The owner of a nearby farm (mud house rather) thought that his dogs would eat me alive that night (and from the looks of it they would have) and ultimately invited me to his place.