It was overcast this morning and throughout the day we had periods of light rain, so it was hardly the ideal day to try and see the supposedly spectacular peaks that stand each side of the Gunt river valley. But regardless of the weather the first part of the day was a pleasant drive, on reasonably good road, through a spectacular steep sided valley. We passed through many villages and like those of previous days, harvest was in full swing with people working in the fields, piles of cut grain sheaves in evidence and people and donkeys carrying cut hay.

Mid way through the morning we stopped and chatted to a couple of young women tourists, riding bicycles, and got some good information from one of them about some places to visit in Iran. Seems she had been there earlier in her trip. She commented that during June parts of Iran were hot - 54°C - yep that's hot 129°F. Glad we won't be there in June.

Eventually the highway left the Gunt River, climbed onto a high plateau and through Koy-Tezek pass at 4277 meters (14050'). About 10 km before the pass the road deteriorated and for the climb through the pass and the subsequent 30 or so km to the Wakhan turnoff we endured some of the worst (or certainly the most poorly maintained) roadway of our trip. We guessed that the poor state of the road is partly a function of the semi-trailer traffic that uses the road to transport goods between China and Khorog, partly a function of the extremes of climate, but also it seems to be partly a function of neglect - we saw no evidence of road crews doing any type of repairs.


In any case we eventually bumped and shuddered our way to the Wakhan road turn off and drove a couple of km down that road to the campsite we used almost a week ago. By the time we got there the wind was howling and it was cold but we were snug in our camper cooking dinner.