I was happy last night when the french guys told me the tunnel was open and the high pass was closed. I focussed solely on the fact that I had 1100m less vertical to do. What I neglected to consider was that there was 1300m of climbing just to get to the entrance of the tunnel. But let’s focus on the positive right ?
Sealed road, not much traffic. What’s not to like about that after the last week.
I paid the guesthouse which left me with 50 com iny wallet. That’s about $8AUD. So I headed into town, got some money and bread and left the strange town of Kazarman.
For the last couple of days, there had been a persistent creak coming from somewhere. Not that I could hear it all of the time. The rocks and bumps masked the noise, so as I was leaving K-Town on the sealed roads, it started to annoy me. Yesterday, I’d checked every bolt I could find and tightened everything up after a week of juddering all day.
It must be the seat post, so I thought. At a deserted bus stop, I quickly regressed the seat post and the creak was gone. Ahhh, now I can ride in peace all day.
I started riding up the hill and it dawned on me that it would be a hard day to get up to the tunnel. Not exciting, I just thought it would be a bit tedious. However, there was enough to keep me amused.
There was a fun downhill after not very far, then I came to some construction areas. They seem to be building another tunnel just north of the existing one. There’s a lot of Chinese construction infrastructure and traffic. In fact, on some of the signs, Chinese characters dominate the local language. When I think of it, after seeing their rail network, China must surely be the best at tunnel building these days.
There were runaway horses being rounded up. I stopped for some lunch, sitting on a road barrier. The road seemed to just go up and up. It was cut through the mountains and as I rode past some of the cuttings, I thought I could heat rain but it was just fine gravel falling down the hill.
Looking up at some of the almost vertical walls, there were rocks sticking out that seemed destined to fall. There had already been some small landslides that left sizeable rocks on the road. I’ve since heard that the road was closed the next day after a landslide. I got lucky !
The day ground on as I continued the gradual climb. I finally made it to some switchbacks followed by the tunnel.
I was waved through and plunged in – except that it was still slightly uphill. It was also freezing inside. I stopped and put a jacket on, and finally, the road turned slightly downhill. It was 3.8kms in all, and I emerged into brilliant sunshine on the other side with a great downhill ahead.
I saw on IOverlander an actual campground that sounded interesting, so I aimed for that, just 15kms down the hill. Twice, there were herds of goats blocking the road with impatient drivers pushing their way through. The shepherds all said hello and welcomed me to Jalalabad – very nice of them.
When I got to the campground, it looked like it wasn’t in operation, with people building cabins, so I kept going, hoping the road would quickly descend to the level of the river, so I could find a place to camp.
I needed water, and the second stream I tried was pretty clear, so I filtered a couple of litres and set off looking for a spot to camp. I found one on a grassy cliff, protected and hard to see from the road – for the most part.
I set up and got organised and noticed a bike making its way along the road, so I flagged him down. Emmanuel is from Germany and was also looking to camp somewhere. So, he set up nearby. It was great to talk while we ate dinner. He’s on a huge tour, eventually getting to Australia via SE Asia.