Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus (A GeoEx eBook)

Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus

A Passage to Pakistan: My First Adventure with GeoEx

end of nine long months of staying close to home, these words cast an enchantment. While I have been content to restrict my exploring to the wonders of the Bay Area this year, a part of me yearns to wander the far-flung corners of the globe again, to venture once more into that great unknown. I emptied the box and before long had surrounded myself with Pakistan: I had the Nelles Verlag map of Pakistan on my right, the Road Map of Pakistan from Mr. Books Super Market Islamabad on my left, and arrayed all around me, Lonely Planet’s Hindi/Urdu phrasebook , postcards, brochures, my musty journal pages, shards of still-glistening stone in a crumpled brown envelope, and hundreds of photographs, plus the InnerAsia trip itinerary, equipment list, and notes for travelers. Immersed in these runes, I was transported to 1990, and the mysteries and marvels of that life-changing adventure unfolded once again. April 2, Pearl Continental Hotel, Rawalpindi: I arrived in Islamabad this morning at 2:56 a.m. I left San Francisco at 11 a.m. on March 30 and flew a total of twenty- seven hours—via New York, Paris, and Frankfurt. Now, at last, I’m in Pakistan: At the airport, hot white letters spelling “Islamabad International” blazed in the darkness, and all around them the same words danced in neon blue Arabic script. Five of the nine members of my tour, plus trip leader Tom Cole, were on the same flight from New York, and we introduced ourselves, stretched sore muscles, and rubbed bleary eyes while waiting for our bags to appear. Soon they did, as did our smiling local guide, Asad Esker, and driver, Ali Muhammad, who whisked us through the dazed and humid night to our luxurious recovery rooms at the Pearl Continental Hotel in nearby Rawalpindi. I slept fitfully for a few hours, then was awakened at 4:30 by the distant wail of a muezzin calling the Muslim faithful—who

personal, envelope-pushing adventure. The Bay Area was the center of the burgeoning adventure travel industry, and every week brought news of enticing new trips these companies were crafting. For years I had been especially enticed by the annual catalog of San Francisco-based InnerAsia Expeditions, whose exotic offerings comprised a destination dreambook. I also had been hearing rumors of a fabled place in northern Pakistan called Hunza. When I discovered that InnerAsia was offering a three-week adventure that went to Hunza and beyond, high into the Himalaya along the equally fabled Karakoram Highway, I immediately wanted to learn more. I contacted the company, and the more I heard, the more it sounded like exactly the adventure I was looking for. Before long, I had excitedly signed up. This morning I retrieved that box and brought it into my study. I opened my tattered, coffee-stained journal and found the first entry from that long-ago journey. There, in scribbled, smudged blue ink, I read these words: March 30, 1990; aboard Pan Am #66, en route from SFO to JFK: I have been on this plane for four hours, during which time I have drunk coffee, coke, ginger ale, and lemonade, eaten a chicken-and- rice lunch, and read 104 pages of John Keay’s The Gilgit Game , and now I am feeling almost numb. I guess this is the blankness between leaving the familiar and arriving at the unfamiliar. Four hours west of here are Kuniko and Jenny and our beloved pink home, my neighborhood, friends, and colleagues, my office—all the known world. And somewhere ahead of me—about 23 hours ahead, if all goes according to plan—is the great unknown: Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, indescribable mountains and valleys and ancient, long-isolated cultures, rough, rough roads, new foods and smells and adventures unimaginable—Pakistan. The great unknown!

“The great unknown!” Three decades later, in 2020, at the

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