M 41...it was never "a" road to me; neither when I read about it on the "Dangerous roads" website, nor when I found out that it was supposed to be the second highest road in the world. It was "the" road that I expected might test us a bit and so I brought with me the altitude sickness pills and a double Tajik entry visa (just in case we would not make it and had to go through another road).
But then some hateful spirits decided that the road would not be enough of a challenge for us. On our last gas stop before the Tajik border we took a full gas can of gas. Umm, I should say a gas can of mud, assorted crap and gas. It came to haunt us later.
But now, there was our first climb to 4,200 meters (almost 13,000 ft); and then another at 4,300 and another one at 4,700 m with a steep final incline. At this height the awesome 24 HP of the Trabi's engine declined to about a half of it. And the 12 old horses were no match for the incline. The car stopped. It felt like it died rather than it stopped. We tried talking to it, swearing at it, we even pushed, but those 12 tired horses did not want to have any of it.
So we offloaded all our stuff and pushed and drove the car about 100 meters. Then we came back for our stuff and carried it the 100 meters to the car. Then again. And again. But at about 4,500 meters even walking without carrying anything is hard. Yet we were walking uphill with all of our baggage. And pushed the car in between our "sherpa's duties". After we transported our luggage, gas cans, tires etc. to the next "drop dead" point, we just dropped down, using all of our energy to get a bit more oxygen into our suffering lungs.
But that is not all of it. As you get higher and higher, your brain, starved of oxygen, is not exactly at its peak intelligence. You might say that the two of us were never the sharpest tools in the box before, but now it started to show. We had to check and re-check every decision all the time. I think it was there where we started to use: "Umm, I guess you are a bit higher than I am..." every time one of us said something stupid. Yet there was no other way to get over the mountain and so we dragged our luggage and pushed our car all the way to the top. It took us quite a few hours, but that was the highest mountain pass on the entire M41. We knew we have won. And so we poured the gas from the gas can into our gas tank.
Almost immediately the carburetor started to plug up by all the mud in the gas. In the high altitudes, the lack of oxygen makes the gas+oxygen mixture too rich for the engine. But our engine was making the "ringing" sound showing that we had the mixture that was too poor. It did not make any sense. Frankly, we could not care less whether something made sense or not, but the car did not want to move much. We cleaned the carburetor, drove a bit and stopped again. Cleaned the carburetor, cleaned the carburetor again, changed the carburetor, stopped for the night and cleaned the carburetor, gas tank and added a gas filter, and in the next couple of days were cleaning the carburetor all the time, changed the dirty gas filters, cleaned the tank again, and, you guessed it - cleaned the carburetor. It was maddening. We started to call themselves "an explosive duo", for we smelled of gas more than a leaking gas tank in a puddle of gas. At every gas station we offended the attendants by insisting that they pour the gas into our gas tank through our old t-shirt; which, obviously made the gas smell that preceded our car even more pronounced.
And then there was the road. Take one of the most beautiful sceneries in the world and throw in a road after a fierce bomb attack towards the end of the Second World War and you get the Pamir Highway. Sometimes gravel, sometimes a broken asphalt, just take your pick. Sometimes the road is carved into the steep slope of the hill and sometimes you look down through your left hand side window and just say: "I'd better keep even more to the right..that house down there is so tiny...". M41 - one of the worst roads, but at the same time one of the best; and for sure the most exhilarating one to drive.