A
good nights sleep with the outside temperature around 10℃. A
flock of around 100 mixed sheep goats was on the move on between us
and the road. The two men and the two boys were herding them in a
tight bunch.They moved across the gully to the top of the ridge and
then were allowed to spread out. One of the herders came and sat 20m
from EC. John went and had a chat. The herder also had a pigeon in a
cage and a handful of sharpened sticks about 1 foot long and some
plaited fishing nylon. John thought that this was to create a pen for
the pigeon during the day but not really sure.
The
flock slowly made its way back to our ridge and were moved off back
to their corral.
As
I was leaving to walk ahead a mob of cattle came around the end of
our ridge. They were on the same grass that the flock of goats/sheep
on been on earlier. We
are unsure how this grazing of public land works. Who gets first bite
so to speak, but no animal stays very long on any patch they are
continually on the move.
The
road is still slow and with us stopping to take photos of the neat
mountains and flowers it seems to take forever.
A
military check point near Khost, which john dealt with, had a truck
diff as the gate post with the gate swinging from the hub. John
really wanted a photo but they would not let him.
We
filled the water tanks in a high clean stream and finally made it to
Qalai Khomb and the Afghan border.
We
did a quick shop some eggs, two small packets of yeast and an ice cream each. The packet showed that the ice cream was covered in
chocolate. Johns was half covered and my had none at all!!
Found Megafone
shop and found out why we had no internet. There needed to be money
on it but not sure what happened to what was on it before. Put
another 2GB on it.
Washing the dishes!!
The
Pamir highway is very rough so our speed has not increased much.It
winds along the river which is the border with Afghanistan. It is too
steep on this side for any sort of houses or farming but the Afghan
side is abuzz with activity
The mud houses are very hard to see, they blend in so well with the earth they are built from.
At 6 just before we started to look
for a camp we found a lovely spot out of site from the road but
across the river from a small village. We watched two paddocks being
ploughed by 2 cattle and a old wooded plough. The lower paddock had
been ploughed recently so was being reploughed.
One
of the guys was spreading seed(?) and they were ploughing it in.
A
group of women came out of some trees and walked back down the road,
they must belong to a different village all dressed in bright
clothing.