Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus (A GeoEx eBook)

Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus

A Passage to Pakistan: My First Adventure with GeoEx

A kind of exhilaration is beginning to take hold, a feeling of exploring a world no one has seen before us. We are trailblazing, opening up the KKH. Adventuring! Once again we begin to exclaim at the vistas and peaks, at the trim stone houses and rock-bordered emerald terraces. . . . Now it is 8:07 a.m. and a red bus with “Rawalpindi” written on the front has just passed us going in the opposite direction. The whole van is cheering—the road is open! April 19, Pearl Continental Hotel, Islamabad: From that point on, our journey was all downhill, so to speak. The sun shone, the peaks glistened, the clouds puffed, the road dried—occasionally waterfalls coursed across the pavement or we bumped over great gaping stretches where the road had been washed away, but these were trifles, good photo opportunities, footnotes to the epic of the KKH. Now that we are safely settled in Islamabad and the end of the adventure approaches, I feel a mixture of exhaustion and exhilaration, and an almost unbearable nostalgia for the trip that I am still on. I think back to my bleary arrival on April 2, when I wrote, “I am a blank map, onto which Pakistan has just begun its artful scrawl.” That moment feels so long ago; that moment feels like yesterday. . . . Three weeks ago, Pakistan was the great unknown; it meant nothing to me. Now it is all around me. Pakistan is burros burdened with fodder and wood; it is lush green fields dotted with big blossoms of color that, as I get closer, turn out to be women in red, green, purple, or blue robes. It is children with dark hair and big shining eyes who smile and wave and cry out, “Bye-bye, bye-bye,” and weathered men in white caps and dun-colored blankets, their stares like skewers until I smile and wave—and their wrinkles crease into smiles and they raise their hands in stately salute. Pakistan is a string of camels plodding down the highway;

We have two options: If we leave now, risking the highway, we can reach Islamabad by midnight; this will give us a full day to recuperate before the 32-hour journey back to the United States. If we wait in Chilas, the rain may let up, which will allow us to drive more safely straight to the airport tomorrow. Tom Cole says he thinks we should stay in Chilas. Asad says he thinks it will be all right to go. Rain patters on the roof, and the grimy light of a cloud- covered dawn smudges the windows. If we don’t risk the road today and the rains continue, we face the distinct possibility of missing our plane in Islamabad and being stuck there for three days until the next scheduled flight—if we can get seats on that flight. Now we sit around the table, thinking of appointments and commitments, dangers and delusions, imponderables and percentages—and, most of all, loved ones anxiously awaiting our return. We look at each other long moments and then, as if with one voice, say, “Let’s go.” April 18, on the KKH: I have felt fear at various times in my life, but never as palpably and deeply as I do now. It sits round and heavy, a lead ball, in my stomach. The van is silent as we drive slowly down the rain-slicked road out of Chilas. A coppery dryness parches my mouth, and I am gripping the van seat to keep my hands from trembling. . . . It is 6:00 a.m. now and we have been bumping along through the morning mists for about a half-hour. We have not seen one other car or truck, and that is spooky. The reality of the KKH hits home—it is not something to be trifled with. . . . It is 8:00 a.m. and we have proceeded this far without avalanche, rockslide, mudslide, or flood. Now the mists have begun to lift, and our spirits have begun to lift with them.

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