To our surprise we weren't woken up during the night by a horde of angry crofters with torches and pitch forks, instead we were woken up by the sunrise and set about making breakfast. One of the best things about minute noodles is that they only take a minute to cook. After twenty minutes we had luke-warm water and a packet of dry noodles, our stove was being cantankerous and not lighting just to annoy us. We had tried our back up stove but couldn't get it lit against the wind, until we put it in the fire pit from last night and used 100 matches. Eventually we could eat our half hour noodles and head back on the highway.

 

I feel its important to tell you Chris was driving the morning shift today as we followed the "road" south east towards the Afghan border. The sump guard was taking a few knocks but was generally holding its ground, until we came to our second river crossing through a large stream washing over the road from a waterfall above. The line Chris took was going well up until the point where it was no longer going well. With a lurch we/Chris hit a lip of rocks and landed straight on top of large solid rock. The horrible bang was nothing compared to the grinding noise the car made as it emerged from the water. Certain that something important had bore the brunt of the hit we pulled over to investigate. The sump guard had successfully taken another hit, but it had snapped one of the rear bolts off and was completely bent out of shape in one corner. It is a good thing my dad had bought a trolley jack as it definitely came in handy as we lifted the car to inspect the damage. The lion boys had a set of axle stands to hold the car while the jack was used to bend the sump guard back into position.  As the bolt was now sleeping with the fishes at the bottom of the stream, we tried to find a new bolt of a similar size. A bolt which was slightly too small was as similar as we could find in any of the three cars, so the bolt was made bigger by wrapping it with electrical tape. The bodge job seemed to work as we lowered the car and watched as the entire sump guard didn't immediately fall off.

 

Chris, not content with removing one bolt, set about trying to knock off the others as well. After a few kilometers away we heard the familiar bang of contact as a ridge was misjudged, unfortunately the familiar bang was followed by a familiar scraping sound. There was no need to look beneath the car, we were both well aware that both rear bolts had fallen out again and the sump gaurd was dragging along the ground. Both teams behind tried to tell us over the radio that our sump was making a hell of a noise, unfortunately we couldn't hear them because our sump gaurd was making a hell of a noise. We drove onwards playing the music of our people for the 'Tajikistanians' gathering by the roadside to watch us pass by then watch them recoil in fear. After a few songs which were all heavy on metallic scrapping sounds another hidden ridge left us in silence. Either the sump gaurd had magically reattached itself or it had tore off completely, consulting the evidence visible in the mirrors the verdict was pretty conclusive. Lunch was calling so we picked up our paper weight and popped it in the boot and left it for future us to worry about.

 

The town we stopped in for lunch didn't have a resident mechanic but it did have a place for lunch. The seven of us sat down in a room with a big pink house and ordered seven of something. A classic meal of mystery meat soup, a vegetable filled broth topped with a chunk of mysterious meat, and chai was delivered to us. After Chris' sump bashing antics he was relegated to the naughty seat while I spent the afternoon avoiding anything that looked remotely like a pothole or bump, which when the entire road is one big pothole is no easy feat. Shortly after lunch we came to our first actual river crossing which was through an actual flowing river. The level of confidence with which the lion boys attacked the river was embarrassingly high as James promptly got the car beached on a pebbly outcrop. Pushing the car did nothing apart from getting us all wet, a friendly local in a 4x4 pulling the car was much more successful in freeing the silly tourists. The Australians and I managed to gracefully skip across the river without a bump to the sump. Chris managed to successfully sleep in a completely rigid posture as I tossed the car around attempting to avoid to climb the mountain without scraping the sump. At the top of the mountain we found an abandoned outpost littered with bullet holes, which didn't deter us from climbing all over it.

 

On the other side of the mountain the landscape took a sudden change from smooth rounded grass covered mountains to sharp rocky mountains. We drove along a "road" caught between a rock and a 100ft drop as it followed a ravine to the valley floor. By this time the sun was going down and we were on the lookout for a suitable camping spot. The radios were running out of battery after the two days of antics, instead of a warning light the Chinese manufacturer opted for a voice repeated at a constant interval. Unfortunately whatever the radio was saying in Chinese sounded alot like "She's f&%£ing s&#t" so was met with laughter instead of a panicked search for a charger. At the bottom of the mountain we found ourselves in a small valley with a waterfall of amazingly blue water surrounded by lush green grass and a police checkpoint. After the checkpoint we found a new spot by the river and parked up the cars off the road. Unfortunately there was no lush grass to camp on so we decided to sleep inside the cars instead after taking a dip in the freezing cold river and the sump guard was repurposed as a windshield for the evening's fire pit.