It was a slow morning with our guardian angels Ange and Ben joining us for coffees by the lake. We went for a quick swim with even Tommi braving the cold water shouting “Viva Italia” as he dived under. After packing up our campsite it was the moment of truth, would Nina start today?? She roared to life as if there hadn’t been any problems yesterday, maybe this had something to do with Sunny the Landcruiser watching on? It also seemed to disprove our theory about high altitude being the problem since we were over 3900m still.
Today we had another huge mountain pass looming over us, the Hushang Pass at 4650m above sea level. We weren’t very hopeful after the previous day's struggles, but at least we had Ange and Ben driving with us today. Nina surprised us all and cruised all the way up to the pass without any issues. This hugely improved our hopes of completing the Pamir as this was the highest point on the route. From here we would start gradually descending with a few passes yet to cross in the coming days. The views from the pass were otherworldly, with huge 5000m+ peaks capped with snow surrounding us. It felt like we were on mars with a mixture of red, yellow, and black dirt and rocks covering the slopes of the mountains.
We cruised down from the pass and found a nice spot for lunch next to the river. It was surprisingly warm even though we were at 4000m and we went for a swim in the river and then napped in the sun. After a relaxed afternoon drive we made it to the foreboding town of Murghab. This town was very basic with a small bazaar where we managed to get SIM cards. The buildings here like in Karakul were mostly all dirt, mud-brick, and stone due to the lack of trees for building material, and are designed to withstand the region's harsh climate and seismic activity. Most of the shops in the bazaar were simple shipping containers repurposed as stores.
We were stoked to have a day without issues and as we got ready to drive to a campsite on the outskirts of town, Nina decided not to start. Luckily a very helpful Tajik man on the street called Ibrahim was able to finally explain to us what the problem was. Apparently old Ladas with a carburetor have a common problem with the fuel pump overheating and not pumping fuel into the engine. His solution we came to know as ‘giving Nina a blowjob’.
The first step is to cool down the fuel pump by slowly pouring cold water over it for a minute, additionally coating it in cold wet mud afterwards. After this one of us would furiously pump the lever on the fuel pump, while someone else blew air into the vent tube by the fuel tank and then quickly blocked it with a stick to maintain the pressure. When Ibrahim told us this we found it hard to believe that such a simple and rudimentary solution would work. Nevertheless we gave it a try and it worked beautifully, with the fuel now entering the engine and Nina roared to life once again. Now we finally knew what was causing the engine to stop and we knew how to fix it!
That night we set up our campsite at a beautiful grassy spot next to the river. Surrounded by mountains we had noodles and Yak beer to wash it down. It got cold quickly so we had an early night in our tents with high hopes for the next day.