The Pamir Highway – A New Camino

There are a number of things you need in order to cycle the second highest road in the world – the Pamir Highway in the Pamir-Alai Mountains of Central Asia. You need a bike that can handle frame re-arranging roads, a body supple enough to bend with each frame re-arranging rut, a spirit that scoffs at extreme altitudes and temperatures, and a gastro-intestinal system made of concrete. Also handy is a life supply of water, vast reserves of toilet paper and baby wipes, an-easy-to-erect-in-the-wind tent, and a laissez-faire attitude towards warm beer and bucket showers. But most of all, you are going to need an appetite for hardship – the kind that will propel you up 4,000 metre ascents again and again – an over-sized sense of adventure, and the zealousness of a pilgrim. Indeed, it is the latter burning-bright state-of-mind that will truly sustain you for the new 1252 kilometre camino aloft the ‘Roof of the World’.

A Camino?

Caminos (Spanish for ‘the way’) are usually associated with meandering cobblestone paths through Medieval villages in France and Spain that have long carried the Christian faithful to shrines of religious significance. ‘The way’ would be long and riven with challenges, often exposing the pilgrim (from per agros, meaning ‘through the fields’ or ‘outside the city’) to lands and customs hitherto unknown. A rite of passage for believers in the Medieval period, undertaking a lengthy pilgrimage was not only a way to pay one’s respects to the sacred relics that one seeks, it was a way to test and affirm one’s faith, and to perhaps earn an indulgence – a pardon for one’s sins. Beguiled by promises of similar spiritual rewards, many people today are donning the sandals, packs, and pilgrim staffs to relive the pilgrim experience. For the modern day pilgrim, even if the journey yields greater insight into the world and oneself, the quest is considered a worthwhile venture. Assistance and amenities available enroute for the pilgrim – inexpensive lodging, meals, medical services, consul, and prayer points – remain features of caminos today.

Drawn by the opportunity to travel simply, slowly, and contemplatively, I set out on my first camino in 2013, walking the popular 800 km Camino Frances across northern Spain. An immensely satisfying experience – both spiritually and physically – two more pilgrimages followed. In 2015, I followed the pathways of Christians through the once Moor-dominated lands in south-eastern Spain to Santiago de Compostela in the north on the 1400 km Camino Mozarabe, and in 2016, the 750 km Via Podiensis, which funnelled pilgrims through the Massif Central of France to the marshalling point of the Camino Frances, St. Jean de Pied de Port. While each had its own challenges, and epiphanies, there was always that overarching sense on a camino that one was building fortitude, community, and an awareness and appreciation for the spiritual compasses – whatever they may be – in one’s life.

Preparing for the Pamir Camino

Not expecting a bike ride across the mountains of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikisan to ‘qualify’ as another camino, it was soon clear that the Pamir Highway inspires the same sense of awe and sacredness of purpose amongst its ‘slow’ travellers. Its location alone – through the highest and desolate reaches of the legendary Silk Road – promises the epic and the unknown, and each year, more and more pilgrims are attracted to its mythic appeal. It speaks to the young, the adventurous, and those whose spirit is ignited by self-immolating feats of endurance. And for those who are not afraid to wander outside the box, in true pilgrim style. At the age of 62, I had inadvertently joined this buff and wide-eyed contingent of pilgrims.

The Pamir Highway proper begins in the city of Osh, Kyrgyzstan and gradually winds its way westward and upward toward the Gorno-GoBadakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan before its dramatic descent into the Panj river valley aside Khorog, Tajikistan. Many of the zealous, like myself, find reasons to extend the journey eastward into Kyrgyzstan to include the Celestial Mountains (Tien Shan) that are part of the whole Pamir-Alai mountain system, if only for the conditioning such climbing in these mountains (which average 5,000 metres in height) provides before the relentless ascents into the Pamirs (which average 7,000 metres).

Almaty, Kazakhstan, a cosmopolitan city of 1.5 million in south-eastern Kazakhstan, makes a good starting point for the leap into the Celestial and Pamir Mountains.  Once a showpiece for Russia, sophisticated Almaty, with its bistros and tree-lined streets (‘Almaty’ is derived from alma-ata which means apple tree), painlessly eases the pilgrim into the 2,500 km journey that lies ahead.  Those prepared to travel independently and self-supported are typically young couples from Europe, many taking a year to cycle across the width of EurAsia, the Pamirs being the mythical giant they face in the middle of the continent.  Bikes are primed, gear and saddle bags carefully packed and balanced until one is satisfied that not only have you the supplies you need for weeks across mountains, you can self-propel them as well.  Self-sufficiency is key in the Pamirs as accommodations are scarce, campgrounds non-existent, and shops or restaurants a lucky sighting.  And, where the mountains are at their highest, you need to prepare for freezing temperatures at any time of year.

And if you aren’t twenty-five, you likely have chosen a tour with a support van, a chef, a bike mechanic and an emergency medic. Like those in our coveted ‘geezer tour’, as we affectionately began to refer to our TDA Global Cycling tour. With an average age of 60, and a fleet of cyclists that grows to 30 on the Pamir, we know we have traded comfort for the badge of authenticity blazing on the chest of the young pilgrims we pass on the Pamir. With our featherweight bikes, sartorial spandex, and support crew buzzing around us, we must have looked like the Imperial Guard of Raj II passing through next to those whose bikes are draped with a year of supplies. All of us pilgrims nonetheless, with bike gear and faces caked in the same road dust, summits celebrated with equal zest, and offers of water and spirits by the locals received with the same humility. With smiles reaching across the road, these are the things that mark the fraternity of pilgrims on the Silk Road.

The Journey Unfolds:  Celestial Mountains, Hellish Roads

At first, the Pamir camino is gentle.  Not unlike the flat sun-burnt plains of Spain’s interior meseta, hard-scrabble farms and scrubland define the landscape soon after leaving Almaty.  Crossing the border into Kyrgyzstan (like Kazakhstan, friendly and visa-free), sun-baked lands are graced by occasional oases of green.  As we approach the second largest saline lake in the world –Lake Issyk-Kul (second only to the Caspian Sea), we pass the guarded entrance to a Canadian owned gold mine which is responsible for 12% of Kyrgyzstan’s GDP.  Not without its controversy, a major protest in 2012 brought the mine to its knees, a problem not resolved until workers, and the country, were properly compensated for their contribution to the company’s success.  

We soon learn, in addition to its staggeringly vast and painterly landscape, what distinguishes the Pamir camino from all others. It is the wretchedness of the road. A project of the Russians in 1929 – to build a strategic supply route through the Pamirs – it is still a main national road through the center of Asia and Tajikistan, but suffers from years of neglect. Eroded pavement, potholes the size of crevises, and ruts that roll into an endless washboard of jagged bone-jarring rock is standard ‘surfacing’ for this road. One moves through the Pamir Highway with the stealth of a jackhammer, hoping that bike and body will forgive you for the abuse. You pray you will not be thrown off by a sudden dip in the road when a car passes, And when the road narrows and uncoils in paroxysms of twists and turns down a mountain, you know that’s when you’ll meet one of the road-swallowing trucks that grind their way through the Pamirs. You hang on.

You cycle through endless grazing land, hills billowing like soft dunes all around you. It appears barren and unutilized, but you are told it’s a land that has nurtured successions of nomadic settlements. The people are given 49-year leases to the land, and move freely between valleys, seeking better pastures, or pamirs for their livestock. The settlements we encounter sport a few yurts, caravans, cars, and livestock – usually yak, sheep or goats. Young herdsmen on horses are often close by, guiding flocks across riverbeds and roads to fresh pasture. Excited shouts of children can be heard, calling out to us as we pass, and if they reach the roadside in

time, they form a gauntlet of hands that highfive us as we pass by. Older Kyrgyz men at the side of the road, in their traditional white stovepipe felt hats (known as ak kalpak), gaze at us with faces a thousand stores deep, while the women corral the horses (and yaks) for milking and producing the reputed manna of the region – kumis (fermented mare’s milk). Homestays, where a farm may include a yurt that is more elaborately furnished and decorated for guests, occasionally give us welcome reprieve from our tents.

Ascent into Tajikistan

The mountains rise and the column of cyclists grows denser as you cross into Tajikistan. When you reach Sary-Tash, the last Kyrgyz outpost before the Tajikistan border, suddenly the snow-capped Pamirs overwhelm the sky in front of you, and the audacity of what you are doing strikes you. There will be six mountain passes to climb (the highest, Ak Baital Pass, cresting at 4,665 metres), each one getting you successively higher into the Pamirs. As we will be camping for over a week at an altitude of over 3,500 metres, our first two days of cycling into the Pamirs will be short ones, in order to allow us to slowly acclimatize to the quickly increasing altitudes. Many of us pop Diamox – an altitude medication – at regular intervals, to ensure our bodies are finding the oxygen needed to manage the punishing ascents.

We begin our ride into glory into the Pamirs at the Tajikistan border. The harshness of the country’s beauty is not lost upon us. Considered the poorest of ‘the stans’, the people of Tajikistan are ethnically closer to Persian people than the Turkic heritages and languages that surround the country, and speak a language recognizable to most Iranians. Isolated from the rest of Tajikistan, the Pamiri people are another group again, with dialects distinct to their mountain region. During Tajikistan’s civil war in 1992, shortly after succession from Russia, it was the Pamiri people of rural Tajikistan who led the rebellion against ruling forces. They suffered intense reprisals, with thousands of them slaughtered in their villages until they were eventually defeated. The economic cost of this war, and the substandard facilities and services left to the people of the Gorno-Badakhsan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan is still evident today. A middle-class family is the one who has five yaks and a lean-to, the wealthy, the luxuries – toilets, refrigeration, electricity and wifi – that we consider essentials. There are no excesses here; you can see it in the wiriness of the people. 120 pounds is the weight of a well-fed man in Tajikistan.

There is an asceticism to the Tajikistan landscape as well. Desert and high desert. By the time you are at 4600 metres, the mountains have ‘flattened’, with the tallest standing only a couple thousand feet higher than the road. It was like the altiplano area of Peru in the Andes, where you simply, apart from some breathlessness, forget the altitude scaled to reach your current level. It would not be until the descent into the Khorog valley, 2,500 kms from Almaty, where we would be able to look up and gasp at the immensity of stone and wonder we had cycled and lived in for so long.

Two Tomatoes and One Shining Day

We are ready for the sweet respite from days on dusty roads when we reach Khorog, the gateway to the Pamir. Botanical gardens, visitor centres, music in the park, pavilions on the river, cappucino cafes in the market, and the noticeable presence of NGOs. One of these NGOs is supported by the Aga Khan, spiritual leader of the Ismaili, a sect of Islam that is followed by the majority of people in this valley. Given that Ismaili belief is open to pluralism and wide ranging intellectual inquiry, Western-style dress is common among the townspeople, and English is widely spoken. Delighted to be able to communicate, a conversation on the street with an Ismaili woman turns into an invitation to her house for tea.

I follow Anisha, her young son and a friend skipping behind us, up a dirt road from town to a modest bungalow that peers behind apricot and pomegranate trees in a garden lush with summer growth. She guides me into her home to a sparsely furnished living room where, as a guest of honour, I am given the only divan in the room. The table before me is soon filling with her best china tea set and dishes filled with apricot and cherry jams, goat cheese and little sausages and sesame cakes. No doubt the pantry was emptied in order to feed her guest.

I learn that one of her daughters is studying in Kenya, the other in Dushanbe. She tells me about her son’s love of all things Western, about her paltry salary as a primary teacher, and about her dreams for a better future for her children. She speaks reverently about the Aga Khan – the 49^th Imam of Ismaili, Swiss billionaire, friend of Justin Trudeau – who has funded many development projects in Khorog, including schools. One non-negotiable subject in Aga Khan schools is English, believed by the Aga Khan to be indispensable in today’s world. She tells me all this in beautifully spoken English, pausing only to fill my teacup once again. The boys sit rapt in attention, lulled by the gentle melody of her voice.

The dishes are swept into the bedroom, where a small cooker and sink mark the area where food is prepared and served. As she walks me to the garden gate, she picks a cucumber a two cherry tomatoes and places them in my hand. We exchange promises to meet again, and as I turn to leave, she waves goodbye with a hand on her heart. My pilgrim heart wells up in return, and I am suddenly smitten with life and living, and the grace of the tomato in my hand. I join writer Richard Wagamese in the feeling that “I am a traveller on a sacred journey on this one shining day.”