#1: [02-Dec-11]

03-Feb-2026 -- Rainer Mautz is in the midst of a long walk from Portugal to Singapore and is about halfway there. You can find more about this amazing journey on www.Polarsteps.com. I was able to join him for about two weeks in Central Asia.

Rainer and I have a long history of exploring and confluence hunting. We met in 1990 in Seoul when we were both on world bicycling tours. We were interested in cycling China, which at the time was still a relatively unknown cycling destination. We spent an exciting and demanding 6 weeks there which led to a lifelong fascination for the Chinese people, and ultimately resulted in both of us finding true love with Chinese women.

The last time we did a confluence together (along with Targ Parsons, who coincidentally also married a Chinese woman he met while confluencing) was 15 years ago when we visited 40°N 110°E confluence in Inner Mongolia, China on 2-Jul-2011.

We had just come from Afghanistan and Uzbekistan and entered Tajikistan at the southwestern border of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Rainer spotted a confluence near the border and we decided to give it a shot. He walked and I cycled beside him about 30 km from the border on the highway to the intersection of a canal. To the west of the canal, which was dry, there was a small dirt track that ran between the canal and the single track railway line that runs to Uzbekistan. We followed this for about 1.7 km.

Rainer has done almost 1,000 confluence points and despite being very seasoned he nonetheless exhibited increasing excitement as we approached the point by counting down the distance and quickening his pace. I struggled to keep up with him as the track through the desert as my bike sunk into sand.

Ae we approached from the south, the mountain range to the west loomed over us and a stiff wind blew in our faces. The air was crisp at 15C and the sun was shining in a glorious blue sky day.

The point was located about 10 meters west of the rail tracks down a slight slope. Rainer had little trouble getting the all naughts on his phone, though at first his app, GPS Tour, first bizarrely displayed the location as 37.000N, 67.600E. Dancing around a bit, he got the app to correctly display the position as 37.000N, 68.000E.

We congratulated ourselves on another successful point added to our quivers. Rainer didn’t check to see if there were any previous visits until after we had documented ours. Unsurprisingly, we were not the first, and given the ease of access, will not be the last.

We left by heading to the nearby city of Shaar-duz on an eastern track. This point could also be reached by 4x4.

It was a great day for confluence hunting and wonderful to have done this with my old friend, Rainer.

CP Visit Details:

• Distance to a road: 1 km
• Distance to a track: 30 m
• Time to reach the CP from the road: 20 minutes (due to the crowd)
• Time at the CP: 4:17 PM
• Measured height: 333 m
• Minimal distance according to GPS: 0 m
• Position accuracy: 5 m
• Topography: flat, in a wide valley but surrounded by high mountain ranges
• Weather: sunny, 15° C (felt temperature)
• Given Name: Afghan Border Confluence

You are very welcome to visit Rainer’s blog of the long hike. If you want to see where he is currently hiking, you can find his daily update on Polarsteps.

The river Amu-Darya, which is forming the border to Afghanistan, is passing only 2.5 km southwest of the Confluence.