Turat had to buy a permit for today's travel to Lake Bulunkul which he had to present at a check point just outside Murgab. This was also the first checkpoint on the Pamir Highway where we had to handover our special permit for the area- GBAO Gorno Budakhstan Autonomous Oblad.
After a couple of hours of driving we detoured into a desert like area to view some petroglyphs. They were easily identifiable as Marco Polo sheep, yak and ibex.
We never saw any other 4x4s on the track at all.
Ibex horns
Further up the valley we headed up to a deserted Soviet era observatory site with abandoned accommodation block, outdoor bread oven, observatory, portable telescope, and machinery. Both John and Mark poured over the workings of the rusting equipment.
We headed back through the valley where we stopped at a grazing camp of Turat's relatives. Turat owned 17 yaks and several goats that he paid his relatives a monthly fee to look after for him here on the farm. The relative also had about 100 yaks. A yak costs $US 500. Three yaks were saddled up for us to ride up into the valley led by a young man and a 13 and 11 year old.
It seemed much easier riding a yak than a horse as the back moves in a solid mass and you don't feel the sway when the animal's legs go up and down.
They boys led then with a rope through their noses. Mark's yak was keen to run which unnerved him so he walked down rather than risk it taking off with him in the saddle.
We walked to the top of the valley where the boys chased their herd of small yaks to better pastures and away from another herd higher up the mountain. We could see three Marco Polo sheep through the young man's binoculars grazing with the neighbours yak herd up high.
We had rice and yak meat with yak butter and yak cheese with the family for lunch. Mark was given some hard dry yak cheese to take away. They dry it over the summer and then add it to boiling stock in the winter to make a thick soup.
Much of the way we have seen marmots but they run so fast back to their burrows and are so hard to photograph. They are a beautiful golden colour and they stand up like meercats and gophers and shriek a high pitched squeal warning their neighbours before they disappear underground. There are so many that I was surprised that the locals don't eat them. The fur would make warm winter coats too and be much better than the acrylic clothes they wear now.
We drove through the small village of Bash Gumbaz where Turat was born and stopped at an old caravanserai site where there was a Chinese tomb and also where Turats's grandparents were buried and where he prayed.
A bleak place where the China to Pakistan trading route crossed.
A couple of women were weaving on a grassy area outside and we managed to snap a shot of them on the way out of town.
We travelled across the high altitude desert on a really rough road to see a thermal spring. The water gushed up erratically every few minutes and the pool felt cold but looked and sounded as though it would be hot.
It was a long busy day and we arrived at Bulungkal about 7pm to a hot meal of plov and boiled eggs at our homestay.
Bulunkul is a small place with about 20 mud brick dwellings, some painted and some not. It is the coldest place in Tajikistan getting down to -55 DegC in winter. The lights were solar powered. During the day the rooms are quite cold with few windows and mostly small ones but at night the heat is released through the mud walls and keeps the room pretty warm for sleeping.
In the morning we could see what a desperate place this is to live in. The people had quite fair hair and green eyes. One of the children had peeling skin and lots of scars from sunburn on fair skin.
This boy was playing with his sister in the cars that looked like wrecks outside the house.
A worker from the Aga Khan Foundation Network was visiting the family in his Foundation land cruiser that was parked outside.
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