We are still driving the M34 to Dushanbe. We had quite a bit of rain on the drive. Some of the rivers that flowed near the road appeared quite full and mountains without rivers suddenly had rivers running down them.

Our drive came to a dead stop near the top of a pass, which you can see in the first photo. We sat in this position for maybe 45 minutes or more. It was pouring rain and we couldn’t see what the problem was. No one turned off their lights or car but it was a long wait. At one point, we were getting anxious because we still had a long tunnel to go and trucks were kept off this road until 5:00pm and we wanted to get through before the trucks joined the road.

I wondered about the rivers rising in the heavy rains. In places like the second photo, I was wondering whether the water might overcome the banks. The road here was just gravel and the water was right there next to the road. The third photo is just another photo of the river really rising and flowing with great intensity. It looked like spring runoff.

The fourth photo is on the Dushanbe side. It was nice to see the beautiful flowers but you can still see snow on the mountains at this point.

We were supposed to arrive in Dushanbe at 5:00pm but we didn’t arrive until 7:00pm. As we neared Dushanbe, I felt sure the Great Spirit was giving us a thumbs-up, guiding-light signal which you can see in the last photo.