This story is a middle point of an end and a beginning, or most of all a continuation!
We were 4 people travelling together as a band for 6 months, playing music on the streets, to make money for all our food an visas, sharing everything. We had shared pretty much every minute of our days, every step of the journey for 6 months, until this place in time and space, where the group of 4 would become 2 of 2.
We had hitchhiked almost all of the way, apart from a cargo ship over the Caspian Sea, and a crowded train through the desert of Kazakhstan, and when we reached Kashgar in China we decided to buy bicycles and bike the Karakoram Highway through the Himalayas in China and Pakistan until India.
This was maybe just a week after we left Kashgar, but the biking journey quickly showed our differences.
Matt and Jeff basically wanted to bike to challenge themselves and their bodies, to race through the mountains and feel the air and the landscape passing by.
Me and Sparrow were a bit... slow..! We couldn't really keep up with the racing pace, and furthermore, our reasons for biking was that we wanted to stop everywhere! We both shared this thing that while sitting in a ride, we would always see some amazing landscape or lake or village or bridge and be like "wow, it would be cool to stop here..! But we have a ride, and it would be a shame to leave it, and oh, we already passed it by now anyway.." - but with the bicycles we could stop everywhere!! We wanted to grab a tea in every little cute road café, stop and walk over every crazy suspension bridge and stop to talk to every single curious local!
Those two things just didn't go well together and after a bit of a fight on a dusty hilltop, we spend the last night together in this out-of-the-world village we found!
We just saw this in the distance, a couple of yurts.. let's go check it out!
What we found was this really special little village with the sweetest kids and family who shared their meals with us in exchange for music and english lessons.
Our tent and last moment as the 4 people group aka The Caspian Caravan
The village contained of just a few dirt huts and yurts on a big high plateau valley surrounded by grey mountains. The village woman were mainly taking care of the huge flocks of goats and cows, as tending the cooking and house keeping. Many of the men were working outside the village.
Just the girl (on the first picture) from the family we stayed with, spoke a little bit of English and she was very happy that we wanted to help her. Also all her younger brothers and sisters came to write notes as we did an "English Lesson" together.
English lessons in the dark of the hut
mother comes in with fresh baked bread
bread baking in the clay oven, everything the same ash grey color as the mountains
The whole landscape had this amazingly smooth feel, as the cows and goats kept the grass down, and little streams were running through with fresh water coming out from springs in the ground
one of the springs
At some point I went swimming with the girls. There were these biting mosquitoes or flies everywhere in the tall grass (luckily not in the village), so it was a great release to jump into the crystal clear water!
I was surprised though to see the girls taking layers of clothes off, to reveal their inner layers that were so dirty that I wondered if they ever took them off! They also jumped in the water with the inner layers on, and put the outer layers directly onto the wet clothes after coming out of the waters.. I couldn't do that, but each to their own..
I still have a dreamy memory of this place and people, that felt so out of time in some way. The silence in this place was amazing, no wind, just this pure silence between cowbells and running water. And the wide green planes just ending in white mist with the mountains peeking up over the horizons.
Thank you Tajik people for sharing your world with us! I'll always remember this place.