July 15, 2018 — Jay Austin
Murghab, Tajikistan. Population: not very many. More than Karakul, whence we came, and certainly more than Alichur, where we're headed. A few thousand, maybe.
Elevation: high. Very high. Too damn high to cook pasta properly. Too high for trees to grow. The lowest spot on the Pamir plateau, but still too high to stand up quickly without getting woozy from the lack of air. Three thousand six hundred meters, technically speaking: four-fifths the oxygen you'd find at sea level; three times the ultraviolet rays.
Sights: well, there's a dusty smattering of old Russian shipping containers repurposed into small bazaar, I guess. A sun-bleached statue of Lenin down on the main street, arm outstretched in a theatrical fashion. Behold, Murghab. There is the mountain backdrop, which is pretty. There is the sky, which is very blue.
Accommodation: a few basic guesthouses and homestays, sure. Drop toilets and plov dinners and thin mats on the floor. And then, in a league of its own, there is the Pamir Hotel. It is the gem of Murghab.
Everyone stays at the Pamir Hotel: overlanders, Russian military, cyclists keen for their first taste of Western comforts since Osh or Dushanbe, depending on which direction they're headed. With a polished wooden lobby and a faintly Wes Anderson aesthetic, one's first steps into the Pamir Hotel certainly feel familiar. Here, for the first time in weeks, a bed. A hot shower. A flushing, sit-down toilet.
But. This is Murghab. Despite the power lines running down the street, there is no electricity. The Russians took that with them when they left. Just generators, for a few brief hours per night. And outside those hours, all is still. No water heaters. No water pumps. No way to flush those fancy Western toilets when they fill up between the hours of midnight and six in the evening.
At least there is a bed.
** *
Lauren and I do not stay at the Pamir Hotel. I find Lauren instead on the edge of town, at a small guesthouse, where the ambulance-shuttle dropped her off this morning. It is quiet and spacious and offers a standard Tajik outhouse, the kind that never clogs nor breaks nor goes out of service when the generators run down. I am sore from my ride, and Lauren is still recovering from her bowel issues. We agree to take a few days off. We explore Murghab.
TRANSITION
Kim, Rene, Hector, Lauren, and I set off from Murghab early the next morning. We ride south, and then west, and then south again. We camp