Tag: car issues

The Pamir Highway: Peak Lenin Base Camp, Qarokul Lake and Bartang Valley (August 2024)

We reunited with Simon and his car Otto and together we started our Pamir Highway adventure!
We bought a whole lot of stuff in the supermarket and filled both of Rosinante’s Diesel tanks.
We started in Osh and our first stop was the Basecamp of Peak Lenin. This mountain is very famous because a lot of people say it’s a pretty easy to climb seventh thousand plus mountain.
Racki and I thought about doing it as well at some point of our time in the stan countries but in the end we didn’t do it because it takes two up to three weeks. I love mountains but going back and forth the same routes (for acclimating) for two weeks… I didn’t feel like I wanted to do it although I’d love to reach a 7000m summit.
The area around the base camp was very beautiful and we did a nice hike with a beautiful view.
Unfortunately I had a strong diarrhoea and had to shit a lot and everywhere. So I did not do any big hikes.
These little and sometimes not so little fellows were everywhere and made a lot of squeaking noises.
We continued to the border to Tajikistan and on the way we tried to find some medicine for my diarrhoea. The pharmacies were all closed but we met nice travelers who gifted me some medicine.
We had organized the permit for the Pamir region and everything else in advance and so the border crossing went very well.
The road between the borders was pretty offroady (no photo) and we were wondering how people with vans and motorhomes were doing this. And there were actually living people between the borders.
On the other side of the border the real Pamir adventure began!
The landscapes were super beautiful and we found a very nice camp spot at the Karakul Lake at 4000 meters altitude.
It was crazy. The light and feeling in that area felt very special. I can’t really say why or how.
Racki and I did a nice hike up on the summit of the Urtabuz mountain at 5047 meters. It was a super easy hike.
We met some living friends on the way up.
And some dead. Actually Racki carried this skull, about 4 kg, almost to the summit and the whole way down again to our camp to gift it to Simon who was repairing his exhaust pipe which broke the day before.
The view from the summit was amazing! On 5000 meters  surrounded by 7000 to 8000 meter high mountains and perfect weather.
After a few days we continued our way into the famous Bartang Valley.
Our plan was to enter it from the east for about 40 km and then return because the tracks in that valley were crazy and we had heard a lot about crazy river crossings and cars getting stuck for days.
But once we had reached a certain point we decided to just continue and try to drive through the whole valley because the weather was perfect and had been like that for a long time.
So we guessed that the water level of the river would be pretty low and the potentially muddy parts would be ok.
The scenery and colors were amazing.
The track was ok and driving fast on the super dusty smooth parts was a lot of fun.
We made it easily over the most offroady part, at a small mountain pass. Only at one point, a pretty narrow, bumpy crossing of a stream on the mountain pass, I thought that maybe I would regret trying to pass this valley.
On iOverlander and in the chat groups travelers mentioned primarily three tough sections.
We made it through the two river crossings without a problem. As we had guessed the water level and current were pretty low. But still it felt pretty adventurous.
In the last tough section a land slide had made the track pretty narrow and depending on the water level you had to guess where the track was. Take a look at the photos and reports on iOverlander. When we arrived there, we could see almost the whole track and everything went well.
But this wrack next to the landslide reminded us how it can go.
We found a nice camp spot to relax after the adventurous part of the Bartang Valley.
The views were awesome.
There were some oases in the rocky terrain.
And the switching between rocks, gravel and the green was super interesting.
We always had some sweet presents with us.
In one oasis village we met a group of super friendly villagers. One of them spoke very good English and invited us to spend some time with them.
It was very interesting. We talked a lot about their lives in that remote village and about life in Tajikistan in general.
After they showed us their home, they wanted to see our homes and got very interested in how everything works and how we lived. We gifted them some clothes, medicine and bandages and it felt good to help them just a bit.
We continued our way in the Bartang Valley and found a nice camp spot close to a river to relax and stayed for a bit longer.
There were just a few cars taking the only off-road track through the valley. One day a solo backpacker from New Zealand joined us and together we had a great time with interesting conversations.
We had big respect for how our visitor was traveling: she was going alone through the valleys and crossing mountain ridges which were sometimes over 5000 meters high and was passing glaciers as well with pretty used equipment.
Our visitor got a seat in Otto and together we continued our journey through the valley which became more easy to drive and at some point we got back on a real dirt road.
This bridge looked adventurous but we did not have to cross it.
We did a nice and easy hike to a remote village which was only accessible by foot. On the way we met other travelers.
The village was very beautiful and located next to a lake. We learned about their lives there, how they were making bread and that they try to live in an ecological way.

We nearly killed Rosinante, about five times, sold Thor and bye bye Georgia (June 2024)

Back in Tbilisi.
Racki’s brother came visiting us from Germany. He’s a car mechanic and the first thing we did was changing the tyre of our Yandex after the car got a flat one.
I already had seen most of the attractions on Tbilisi but it was nice to show Racki’s brother around.
One of my favorites: the tiny clock.
And of course: THE MOTHER SHIP!
In one of the pubs there was a lot of wisdom to find on the toilet’s wall.
Back in Armenia we had waited for someone from Germany to get really interested in buying Thor but that did not happen.
Back in Tbilisi we made one last push and Racki messaged everybody who was into renting campers and caravans in Georgia. And it worked! We found a perfect buyer for Thor. He fell in love with him at first sight and found a way to import Thor to Georgia even though there were some regulations about importing cars older than ten years.
And so Thor became Georgian and although Racki’s heart was bleeding a bit, we were happy that Thor found a new and meaningful life in Georgia.
Some weeks later the new owner told us, that he already had managed to get everything repaired that was not working for about one thousand Euros. Even in Germany that had not been possible or would have cost several thousand Euros.
Did you recognize my awesome new summer hat?!
We met some of our best friends and went to the nicest restaurant in Tbilisi: Home Kitchen. It’s a super authentic, tiny and cheap place where you basically eat in the living room and kitchen of two real Georgian mums.
We had the biggest and most delicious Khachapuri. It was a super nice dinner and it was awesome to see our friends before we would leave Georgia.
After the city we took Racki’s brother on a nice hike in an area we have not been before and spent some time in nature showing him our nomad life. Waterfalls! Here is the hike on Komoot.
We met Marie who was traveling in a small camper van with her five dogs. Yes. FIVE dogs. They were a crazy gang. The smallest, a Chihuahua, was the leader. And Marie was such a nice mother to them and a very interesting and strong character. Together we had a great time with bonfires and so on.
For the way back to Tbilisi, we chose a small track over a smaller mountain and through nice forests. But this tour turned out to be crazy!
Driving a very steep and narrow hairpin curve, I did not recognize a deep trench on the right side of the track.
Rosinante’s right rear tyre fell completely in it still touching no ground, the whole car tilted to the right, the left front wheel got up in the air and the whole car was only held by the rear fender.
Racki and her brother got carefully out of the car and stood on the left rockslider to tilt Rosinante back to the left but it was not enough.
I felt not good about what might happen next.
We decided to attach the cable of the winch to a pretty small tree to stabilize Rosinante. But the tree was far from perfect because its lowest part was still higher than the track and Rosinante.
But it was our only change. Racki and her brother got back on the rockslider and I started winching from the driver’s seat.
First Rosinante started tilting even more and the front got up. Very scary. I guess there was a possibility that the whole car would just roll.
It didn’t. We managed to save Rosinante and we were very relieved.
After that we decided to go on and made it through some tricky parts over the highest point of the track. The next day we took Just a walk and then I wanted to continue because we did not know what this track would be like and there was a decent probability of rain.
Our next obstacle was a titled part. You can’t see it in the photo but it was really tilted and got even more tilted. I was not sure if Rosinante would flip and roll down the slope next to it and so we started leveling the track. Three hours! It was crazy but we made it through.
After some other tricky parts and a lot of scouting and trying and using our recovery boards we made it to a super muddy, slimy and slippery slope. There was no chance to get up without the winch and so we used three trees to winch us up and around a corner. When relocating the winch, Rosinante’s breaks were barely able to hold her on the slope and saving her from slipping down and so we had to be quick.
After the slope we had to winch Rosinante through a muddy forest because the track itself was completely washed out.
And after maybe rolling down a slope on a small graveyard we finally made it to a camp spot. We were exhausted and for me this off-road track was the craziest I ever did! The same for Racki and her brother.
Since then I’m really not looking forward to do off-roading like that.
And I’m still happy that all four of us survived!
Back in Tbilisi we said farewell to Cindy’s brother who had an adventurous time with us and was looking forward to relax a bit back in Germany.
Our tyres were pretty much done and so we swapped them.
After months of searching for new BFGoodrich AT2 tyres in Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, we decided to just go with Chinese tyres because in the end one BFGoodrich would have cost 700€. Five of the best looking and new Chinese tyres were 620€.
We have a long term review of these Roadcruza RA1100 AT tyres going on since then. And so far we are very happy with them.
And we got the best steering alignment ever! It’s weird but although there are a lot of people offering steering alignments and it’s quite a thing in these countries because of the potholes and road conditions, the results are often not very good. But this time a guy from Russia who worked for a racing team eid a great job!
On our way to Russia we made a stop in Arsha to climb again the magnificent climbing crag there. It was awesome!
Marie and her dog gang joined in and we met Silvi, Rick and another funny guy. Together we had a great time talking, climbing and hanging out.