The Karakoram Highway part 4: from Gilgit to Sost

Gilgit is an awesome city and the Jamal Hotel that is led by proud Kashmiri is clean and quiet. Sitting on the terrace Peter is getting spoilt by the staff time and time again with free cups of green tea, jam sandwiches and free Kashmiri language lessons. We rest here for two days, only doing some writing and typing. The Shiites and Sunni keep quiet, which is a sensible thing to do when we are here.

After a rainy night it's very cloudy on the day of our departure. Via the west bank of the Hunza river we cycle on a small road to Nomal, where we'll cross the river and return to the Karakoram Highway. Oncoming traffic warns us for blockades, but we don't encounter more then a couple of stones and water puddles on the road.

At Nomal we cross the wild churning Hunza and then we see the blockade: there is a gap of one hundred metres where once was the unpaved road up to the KKH. A landslide of mud and rocks has dragged away the vanished road. Cars and moped can't get through; pedestrians walk over rocks, through mud and the fast flowing water to get to the other side. We examine the situation, take the bags of the bicycles and start walking. Several men volunteer and insist on carrying my bags for me to the other side. Peter takes the bicycles over his shoulder through the knee high and icy cold water, watched and cheered on by men on the other side. It takes us two hours to get all our stuff to its destination: the dry bank, even with the help of a bunch of young boys. We thank the boys and give them some rupees, and then we take a break, shaking and trembling because of the effort.
Later the itinerary via Nomal turns out to be a good choice: at the KKH to Gilgit have occurred much bigger landslides, which will block the road for several days.

Easily we pass another two smaller landslides, where we have the advantage of travelling by bicycle; long queues of cars have to wait for the road to be cleared, while we pass the large boulders on a small strip of road. From here we climb and descend snake wise along the roaring river. The sky clears and the views of the phenomenal snow-capped mountains warm us.
Ghulmit Nagar lies squeezed between the shoots of the Rakaposhi Mountains. From the bridge over the fast streaming glacier water we look up at the 7.788 metres high giant and enjoy the colours: a heavenly blue sky, Omo-white snow, steel-blue glacier and warm-green pastures. At this place we stay in a kind of Fawlty Towers-hotel: no service, process that are too high, no hot water (although promised), power problems and bad food. After our complaints the prices go down, but our discomfort stays.

Sitting askew on my saddle, I cycle with a new carbuncle on my behind that is nearly as big as the surrounding mountains. Incredibly painful and I feel it the whole day. We decide to call it a day after 31 kilometres, in paradise Karimabad. This town is situated on the lowest flanks of Mount Ultar, high above the Hunza River, with a view of the colourful valley: thousands of poplars, green fields of maize and grain, several kinds of fruit trees, large orange coloured spots of drying apricots. We sit on our balcony of the World Roof Hotel, enjoying the sight, completely fulfilled.
The open and friendly people, most of them Ishmaelite Muslims are completely different from the Pakistani people only one hundred kilometres back. Men and women are equal; the level of education is high and their peace-loving community leader -Aga Khan- is loved very much even though he is forced to live abroad in exile.

We stay for a day and are impressed by the five snow peaks surrounding us, of which four are higher than 7.000 metres (Rakaposhi, Spantik, Diran, Ultar and Bubulimating). The two fortresses, Baltit and Altit, are both being restored; seems like we're back in Oman!
At a tiny medicinal herbs-shop we play a game of Pictionary and leave with 21 herbal pills that exactly look like goat-droppings, but still. I eat anything to get rid of those damned carbuncles.

On our way to Passu we pass the Haldike Rocks, which are covered with inscriptions and engravings of ibex, horses and warriors, the oldest thousands of years old. The read ascents and descents continuously, like most stretches of the KKH. After a long day of cycling we climbed a lot, but we've only risen a few hundred metres.
We cycle through glaciers and snow fields, the road is wet but very good, thanks to the road maintenance. The more we go north, the less traffic. The temperature is finally going down, although I'm still sleepy during our breaks because of the heat. We are very surprised by the news that two people died during the Four Days of Hiking-event in Nijmegen, our hometown. They died because of the continuing heat wave of 35 degrees Celsius there. For us, by now this is a reasonable temperature in which we love to cycle and certainly not too hot.

Entering Passu, we cycle close to the Passu Glacier and we can't keep our eyes from the icy-blue glaciers, peaks and crevices. At the Glacier Breeze Restaurant we deliver Dick and Nana's greetings to the chef, Ahmed Ali Khan, divulge ourselves on the apricot cake and make an appointment for a two-glacier-trekking the next day.
We flee the Passu Inn after an hour, because although we have paid for hot and cold water, there is no water at all and nobody is willing to do anything to make sure we do get water. Major Akbar Shah very well manages the Passu Peak Inn, a few kilometres further down the road. He receives us with a big welcome and lukewarm water. At his place everything functions; thanks to the eagle eye of the ex-soldier. The view of the Cathedral Peak and the yellow-green garden full of lowers make the perfect meal even more complete.

And then, the two-glacier hike. We are cyclists, not hikers, although we probably will surpass most people easily thanks to our physical condition and stamina. Before we start walking we carry our bicycles up the 111 steps to the Glacier Breeze Restaurant, for safekeeping during our absence. Then the real climbing starts, pf...
We hike with a young guide, Tanveer Ahmed, who does this every week, to a view of the Passu Lake and the Passu-glacier, before we continue over the high plain. After five hours of climbing we reach the viewpoint over the Hunza-valley and the surrounding mountains. The view of cathedral Mountain, the valley and Pass are astonishing. The Batura-glacier is fully covered with grey rocks and stones and a lot less interesting to look at, despite the knowledge that this is a huge glacier of tenths of kilometres long and hundreds of metes thick.
After seven hours of climbing and descending we come to the conclusion that it was a beautiful trip, but not really suitable as resting day between cycling.

On the last day of cycling on the KKH, to Sost, visibility suddenly has dropped dramatically and we realise how lucky we have been the last four weeks with the bright blue skies every day. Earlier then expected we reach New Sost, where we meet an elderly French couple that retired this year and decided to cycle around the world in two years. That's short for the whole world, but they like flying just as much as cycling, which comes in very handy.
In Sost our cycling trip over the Karakoram Highway in Pakistan comes to an end. Crossing the Khunjerab Pass and the border with China by bicycle is not allowed, we will have to take the bus like everybody else. For us this is a rather disappointing epilogue of a fantastic cycling journey of 750 kilometres with wild rivers green valleys, grey rocks and a lot of special people.
One day we will return, and finish what we started…