Ishkashim District & Wakhan

At first I can barely stand the temperature as I tentatively dip my foot into the steamy hot water, but the crisp fall mountain air hastens my immersion into the thermal springs. My body surrenders to the intense warmth of the spring water and a great sense of contentment and relaxation comes over me. My eyes begin to adjust to the dimness of my surroundings and I find myself sitting in a small cavernous-like pool enclosed by smooth natural calcite rock. To my right the hot spring water flows down into the pool where I sit alongside several local Tajik men engaged in conversation, while the steam rises up to the sliver of natural light coming in from the rock opening above.

Bibi Fatima, named after the Prophet Mohammed’s sister, is the natural mineral hot spring that we came 150km to visit. It sits near the top of a hill 1.5km above the wide Wakhan Valley that separates Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Nearby Bibi Fatima Springs is the ruins of the 12th century Yamchun Fort with views of the Afghan mountains and the stunning 7000m peaks of the Hindu Kush (Killer of Hindus) that mark the borders between the thin sliver of Afghanistan’s north-easterly territory with Pakistan. It’s a unique feeling to stand on a mountain in Tajikistan and be able to look across at the valley and see the mountains of both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The soak in the hot spring and the views from Yamchun Fort are certainly a great reward after the long five hour drive it took to get here.


(Left: Yamchun Fort with Afghan and Pakistan mountains in the background)

Sitting in a van traveling along a very bumpy dirt road at first feels like a fun amusement park ride but all the bouncing up and down quickly becomes quite tiring. It also makes for a very challenging and amusing experience trying to put the camera up to your eye to focus. I came close several times to poking myself or giving myself a black eye with the camera.

The scenery is breathtaking as we drive along the southern Tajik side of the Pyanj River which divides the country from Afghanistan. Along this stretch of the border of our journey south from Dushanbe to Ishkashim the river is narrow and fast moving with many stretches of turbulent white water bounded by precipitous rock formations.
Driving along the river one can see the contrast between Tajikistan and Afghanistan. On the Tajik side there are quite a few communities, with adequate infrastructure including a dirt road, electricity and communication lines. While on the Afghan side, there are only isolated communities that are linked by donkey trail, which in some places the trail clings tenuously to steep rock walls along the fast flowing river.


(Left: Pyanj River separating Tajikistan and Afghanistan)

The “English speaking tour guide” Ergash who accompanied us on this day trip ironically is the same fellow that I had arranged with to provide me a formal Letter of Invitation to visit Tajikistan (a government requirement). Of course, that famous letter was incorrectly administered and landed me in Tajik airport detention for 9.5 hours. Not that I’m bitter or anything... that dumbass!

The only reason we decided to use this individual again was that he was the only tour operator we were able to contact on such short notice to arrange this trip. I thought perhaps I would give him a second chance to redeem himself. We figured that since he was from the area he would be able to provide us with some local knowledge of the sites. His response to that was, “everything you want to know is in your Lonely Planet guide.”

At one point in the trip Emily’s mom asks, “Ergash, what are the names of those two very large mountain peaks that we see in the distance?” He pauses for a minute. “Oh, those are just rocks that have no name,” he replied. We all thought that was curious at the time, since they looked large enough to be worthy of being named. True enough days later as I leafed through the Lonely Planet I saw a map of the region and found out that those two peaks did in fact have names, Karl Marx Peak (6700m) and Engels Peak (6500m).

He proved to be right. Everything we needed to know was in the Lonely Planet! Well, that $20 extra that he charged to accompany us as a “guide” was certainly well spent. For someone who works as a tour operator in the Pamirs he really was a disappointment. However, we very much enjoyed the scenic drive and the soak in the hot spring. Traveling in the Pamir region certainly is worth enduring the bumpy car rides.