We've made it through the depths of Dankai and are hoping the route back to the Pamir Highway isn't going to be too hard.

The next morning, Michael and I are brewing tea when Chris climbs out of the tent saying, "I feel great. Thirteen hours of sleep!"

"Lucky you seeing the ibex up close last night," I say.

"What ibex?" Chris replies.

"The two herds that ran within a few metres of the tent."

"Oh," Chris says, "I thought I heard a rock fall. But I wasn't interested in getting up, so I figured all good as it hadn't squashed me."

We load our bikes, ride some stretches and walk others as the surface varies between soft sand, soft gravel, and boulder fields. Vehicle tracks appear then disappear under the gravel. A wind rises in our faces and we burrow down in sandy hillocks to cook Chinese noodle soup for lunch; we need energy. I reapply zinc sunblock to my cracked lips; there’s no mirror in which to see how clownish I look.

"I've got flavouring," Michael crows as he opens his packet.



"We don't, again," I grump.

As we walk the final two kilometres uphill across gravel to gain the Pamir Highway, I ask Chris, "Why didn't you check the noodle packets?"

"What do you mean, check the noodle packets?"

"When you bought the noodles in Murghab," I say.

"Check for what?"

"For flavour sachets."

"How would I check for flavour sachets?" Chris says. "You can't see them through the packaging."

"You could have felt the packets."

"Don’t be ridiculous," Chris says.

“I think you’re going the wrong way to the road,” I say.

“That’s ridiculous too. The road’s that way,” he points at the steep slope which must be on the other side of the highway from our gravel plain.

“But it would be easier this way,” I point right to gravel a degree or too shallower than where we are walking.

“I don’t think so,” Chris pushes ahead.



I storm, ridiculously, across the gravel in a right-slanted direction veering away from Chris. I push as hard as I can to leave him behind. I drop my bike, ignoring that Chris is on the tarmac a hundred metres away, and walk back to help Michael, who is a dot in the far distance because his heavy load is sinking into the sediment. I push as Michael tries to ride and Chris takes a photo of us from the road.

The three of us regroup at a love heart crafted from fluorescent tape stuck to the tarmac. "I bet Sue and Julia left this," Michael says. I reckon he might be keen on Sue; maybe it's reciprocated.



At our next sand-blasted camp, the last in Tajikistan before we cross the border to Kyrgystan, Michael says, "You know the park ranger charged us the truck rate?"

"How did you figure that out?" I ask.

"I translated the Cyrillic on the permit form."

“Good thing we weren't trucks; we'd never have made it through Dankai.”

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.