Part 1 of this story ran a few days back—Ed.

We were sitting in a large concrete pipe running under the Kandahar-Herat Road in western Afghanistan, trying to ration the remains of the four liters of water each of us was carrying. Our two XL250s were parked outside, mine with the rear wheel missing. Charlie had that in our temporary home, looking for the hole in the tube. It was not how we had pictured ourselves during our 570 kilometer day on the way to Herat.

Woken by the early- morning call of the muezzin we had quickly loaded the bikes outside our basic hotel and headed north. Leaving Kandahar in the early morning light we found riding in the cool of the morning very pleasant, and we even pushed the XLs past their usual touring speed of 80 km/h on the smooth road surface. All was right with the world as we rolled into the Dasht-e Margo – the Desert of Death – on the way to our appointment with the concrete pipe.

That’s not mist over the desert, it’s the ever-present dust.

It was a desert all right, but there was little sign of death; not even roadkill. Traffic was light and the scarcity of towns along the way meant that there was little side traffic. It did get hotter as the day wore on, and we wetted our T-shirts with some of the water from the canisters we carried in our luggage racks. Despite that we were sweating freely by the time we reached the modern, high steel bridge over the Farah River, and we were ready for some more cooling. I later discovered that Farah once experienced a temperature of 49.9 °C (121.8 °F), which is the highest ever recorded in Afghanistan. From the bridge, the shallow water of the river looked quite clean and we simultaneously decided on a quick refreshing dip.

Reaching the water’s edge meant riding across a wide apron of large, rounded pebbles, which was no problem with the bikes’ Trials Universal tires, although as we later discovered, it wasn’t just pebbles. We propped the bikes on their side stands and stripped to our underpants before sliding into the warm but still refreshing water. Eventually we soaked our t-shirts and the insides of our helmets before climbing back into our other riding gear and riding back up to the road.

Charlie goofs around with the attendants at another Afghan petrol station; it was too hot to take photos on this road.

There is a petrol station not far to the west of the bridge – It’s still there, I’ve just found it again on Google Maps – and we pulled in to fill our Acerbis tanks. Now there is something you must understand about buying petrol in Afghanistan. The bowsers do not have an indication of the price on them; all they show is the quantity. It had taken us a while and costs us a few afghanis (the name of the currency as well as the people) before we realized that the price of petrol was the same throughout the country. So all you needed to do was multiply what it said on the bowser by that figure to get the total that you owed.

Sounds simple. You just hand the attendant a few notes and hold out your hand for change. He smiles and looks at you. You wiggle your hand. He goes, “Oh!” and gives you a few coins, but far fewer than the amount owed to you. You count the coins, wiggle your hand again and look stern. He tilts his head inquisitively, still smiling quietly. You take a step towards him and he goes “Oh!” again before giving you another coin. This continues until you are so fed up that you turn and leave or, rarely, until he reaches the amount he owes you.

It happened every time.

I gave up on this occasion when he was still a few cents short, but we did get to refill our water containers – a fortunate decision because a few kilometers further on, the thorn I had picked up with my rear tire on our way down to the river bank worked its way through to the tube, and my rear tire went flat. Fortunately, we were just over the large concrete pipe you met at the beginning of this story so we could get out of the sun which was biting quite hard by now. Charlie found the thorn and fixed the tube, reinstalled the wheel and we continued on our way.

Charlie, who was and is a great bush mechanic, looked after the bikes while I handled paperwork.

Then the tire went flat again. This time our repair site was just rocks by the side of the road, there being no pipes or anything else to be had for shelter. Another thorn was making its presence felt – one that had not been obvious during the previous repairs when Charlie had carefully checked the inside of the tire carcass for just that possibility. It had obviously still been making its way through the rubber of the tire. Another patch, another careful check of both the inside and outside of the tire, and we were off once more. Our water containers were empty before this patch was in place. Did I mention it was hot?

There’s no shortage of scenery although one rock face tends to look like another after a while.

Then the tire went flat again. It looked like the Dasht-e Margo was staking some kind of claim on us. This time it wasn’t a thorn; the tube had been pinched during installation. Had we had a spare tube we would have fitted that, but the tube was already our spare. Charlie was very careful with it and we made it to Herat early in the evening with air in all tires – a bit of an anticlimax but a very welcome one.

A couple of days later with the fine for overstaying our visas paid, we crossed the border into Iran which is another story. A cheerful one, too!

(Photos: The Bear)