July 21. It has rained all night and it still drizzles in the morning. It’s a tough life. Pancake breakfast at the Hidden Paradise restaurant and coffee with walnut cake at Hunza café followed by an internet session at zero point internet café. The weather forecast is good for Friday and the weekend. Lets hope we finish of our trip on a high note.
July 25. The 22nd was another rainy day and a good 20 degrees colder than last week. We spent the day doing absolutely nothing apart from the 3 trips to our favourite restaurant for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It surprises us that we can put up with this. The 23th was flyable and Grey and I got away. We walked up high above our usual launch site to increase our chances to get away but even then Pierre was unlucky and was in the landing field after 20 minutes. We flew down the Karimabad spur to the west and flew with a couple of vultures a few times. Then we decided to have a look at the new lake behind the landslide. The moment I turned around I dropped out of the lift and sank out all the way to karimabad where the youth goes crazy every time we fly over. Grey stayed up another hour and flew close to the fort so I could take some video. The weather forecast for the next days was good so we organised ourselves with transport and porters for a 1200 metres climb to a launch site a bid to the east of the eagles nest. The 24th we got up at 5am and drove up to the eagles nest with two Jeeps, one for us and the gliders and one for the porters. I don’t feel to good about getting another human to carry my stuff, I feel like a colonial with his coolie. But that feeling fades once the going gets tough, I couldn’t have gotten up that hill carrying all my own gear. The day looks great but once on the launch site it is very stable. We are at 4300metres and the inversion is below us, the clouds that form are generated above the inversion. It makes for an infuriating couple of hours flying, wearing way to many clothes and hitting the inversion and turbulence at 3900. The lift is close to the mountain so it is intense flying, always close to the ground. It is not till we get to the end of the karimabad ridge that we are able to push trough the inversion and climb to over 4000 metres. I flew on the opposite side of the valley of Rakaposhe and had a awesome view of this 7788metres high mountain with its many glaciers clinging to its slopes. The walk up had sapped Grey and myself of quiet a bid of energy and on the launch site we felt the effect of the altitude. That and the intense flying took its toll and after three hours I had had enough. I flew back to our start point to make an out and return and then went to land in our usual landing spot right next to Grey who had already packed. I decided that that was my last flight in Pakistan. There has to be something to come back for. A flight over the top of Rakaposhe is one reason. We are told by the locals that spring time is more unstable. I will have to ask the experts, John silvester and Brad sanders about that. In a few days we go back to Islamabad, either by plane or by bus. Today we woke to a mainly bleu sky but the high cloud is motoring along at a hundred kmp. Non of us is very enthusiastic about flying and the lure of the café life is strong. Tomorrow we will rent a Jeep and drive into another valley and go for a walk I think.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
July 13. Well, that didn’t happen. We are getting a little taste of the monsoon so it was overcast most of the day with a few spots of rain. The weather forecast is for a few days of this so tomorrow, if it doesn’t rain, we take a Jeep ride into one of the valleys to get a close up look of one of those giant glaciers around here. Today we went for a walk around the area along irrigation channels and trough a maze of pathways. It keeps amazing me to what lengths humans go to make the environment inhabitable for them. Thousands upon thousands of tons of rock have been and are being moved to create terraces and water channels to be able to grow crops.
July 14. We took the Jeep into the Hopper valley. After an hours drive we reached the end of the road and The Hilton Inn, from where the walking track climbs over a little rise to reveal the first glacier. As every where, the people are desperate for visitors and we get assaulted by people selling things as soon as we get out of the car. Out of pity more then necessity we take a guide to show us the way. The glacier is covered with rocks but some parts are fairly active and huge seracs have been pushed up. The scenery is big and wild and it feels good to have my feet on the ground. Flying is a great way to see a lot of country with minimal effort but for me it doesn’t leave the same dept of impression as a walk. It is a partly cloudy day which is just as well. It is still hot and breakfast wasn’t sitting to well with me so about three quarters of the way in I turn around to make it slowly back to the car. Grey continued with the guide along a second glacier to reach a summer grazing area with Sheppard’s huts and stunning views of the high peaks all around. When we get back to the hotel a fourth pilot has arrived. Mukrim has to leave in a few days so it is great to have someone else to replace him.
July 15. It was a flyable day but once in the air it was rough and inverted. This launch is not very high and with the current conditions it is very much hit and miss weather one gets away or not. This time it is Mukrim again that misses and ends up in the landing field after 10 minutes. The air was very rough and inverted and after two hours of trying to get higher dark clouds started to form to the south with the sound of thunder reaching us, time to land
The 16th Grey, Pierre and I take the taxi up to Eagles nest. Halfway up the road is blocked by a new landslide. Tonnes of mud and rocks have spilled from the slope above the road. A reminder of the fragility of this man made oasis. The slopes are steep and the layer of arable soil lose and overlaying solid rock, the irrigation water a perfect lubricant to get things sliding. We walk across and catch another taxi to take us to the end of the road. It has been very warm and the air has been stable so we are having a late start. We are driving up because there is a few small clouds forming, giving us the hope to find some thermals. The walk up is pretty hot this late in the day and I suffer under the load of my glider and all the bivi gear. Getting ready and putting on a long john, fleece pants, pants and flight suit plus double down jacket is an energy sapping exercise when the temperature is over 30 degrees Celsius. The thermal cycles are weak and, as usual, across the slope. I shoot straight across the canyon and have to scratch a long time very close to the slope before I can relax a little. Pierre and Grey launch shortly after me but do not find the lift I got and sadly sink out to the village. I climb out and repeat the flight around Lady finger and Hunza peak. Then around 3 o’clock all thermal activity stops and I glide across the hunza valley towards The Rakaposhe side and get a glimpse of the enormous ice fields that surround this mountain. Then I glide back to Karimabad and phone Grey to come to the fort to take some pictures while I soar around it. Another great flight, I cant be to enthusiastic as Grey and Pierre bombed out, hopefully we get some more instability soon so we all get to fly this awesome scenery.
July 17. The sky is an azure bleu with not one single cloud. It is hot and nothing stirs. Time to play the tourist and visit the nearby fort. The Altit fort was build some 800 years ago and has some interesting Tibetan characteristics. The little village at its foot is unspoiled by concrete structures and is a maze of little alley ways. Prince Charles was here in 2002 and visited one of the local houses. The owner has turned the place into a shrine and points out were the prince sat and were he put his hand, all riveting stuff.
The village square is a water reservoir that doubles as the kids swimming pool and with this heat it is full of them, daring each other to jump the highest from the trees surrounding the water.
July 18. The stable conditions persist and we stabilise with it. We are becoming so stable, we hardly move. It was a day doing nothing more than eating, sleeping, internet and lamenting with the locals about the lack of tourists. The people here are getting a raw deal. First of all Osama blew up the twin towers and as a result the conflict spilled over the border into Pakistan. Pakistan is supporting the Americans so the Taliban fights against it with a few bomb attacks on the capital. As a result the tourism numbers have dropped to virtually nothing and the people relying on tourism are left to fend for themselves. Just imagine this happening in New Zealand or any other big tourist destination. The little town of Karimabad has developed on tourism with the main street lined with tourist shops full of carpets, shawls and other nick knacks. The streets are empty but the shop owners are still putting out there wares and sit in front of their shops eagerly awaiting the arrival of the hordes that are not coming. It is hard to look at the pour buggers sitting there day in and day out looking at us with expecting eyes. Yesterday I asked the guy at the ticket office for the fort how many visitors he had had. Two people had bought a ticket. We kind of laughed about it and decided that that was better then crying, which would scare away any potential client. On top of the perceived danger of terrorism they have to deal with a natural disaster that has come in the form of a land slide that has wiped out one village and has created a dam of a mile wide and some hundred metres high. The lake behind the dam is now 30km long and has drowned several villages and the Karakorum highway to China. All road transport to and from China has ceased and on top of that the road to the south is under reconstruction in a way that a trip that took 55minutes 5 years ago now takes 5 hours. If all this would befall any valley anywhere in the western world people would rise up and make sure that the rest of the world would know about there predicament and that their leaders would do something about it. Here the government is corrupt at all levels and the people seem in shock.
I wonder how much longer these people are going to take it before they rise up and revolt. I guess what saves them is the fact that most still have their land and grow their own potatoes and cereals and fruit.
July 19. Today is a day to forget for me. We went to the launch late as the conditions looked stable. Pierre hired a guide and porter and walked up a thousand metres above the launch site early in the morning. When we saw him climb up after launching we rushed up the mountain to join the puffy clouds that started to appear in the sky. As usual the thermal cycles were weak and across the hill and I repeated my routine by flying over the ravine to try and catch the lift on the other side. This time I was out of tune with the thermal cycles and sank out below the level from where to expect to work my way up again. Grey was 5 minutes behind me and worked his way up in no time. I worked hard above the fort in light lift, to the delight of the kids in the village who clapped and whistled at my efforts. I gained a few hundred metres but never got high enough to connect with the rocks and the soaring crows and my day was over in 20 minutes. Grey had an awesome flight, reached 6800metres and got pretty close to Rakaposhe.
July 20. The end is nigh. One more week and we will be leaving Pakistan. Today we woke to a cloudy sky and stumbled from breakfast to coffee, the first real one in 8 weeks, to a game of cards, to lunch and a siesta. Then at 2 in the afternoon we set of for a walk into the canyon that we fly over. There is an incredible feat of local engineering build on and in the wall of the canyon. They have blasted a ledge in the wall and build up the sides with dry stacked stone to create a canal that runs the water from the glacier nose into the village. The drop is sheer and several hundred metres deep in places and the walk along it a bid unnerving.
July 14. We took the Jeep into the Hopper valley. After an hours drive we reached the end of the road and The Hilton Inn, from where the walking track climbs over a little rise to reveal the first glacier. As every where, the people are desperate for visitors and we get assaulted by people selling things as soon as we get out of the car. Out of pity more then necessity we take a guide to show us the way. The glacier is covered with rocks but some parts are fairly active and huge seracs have been pushed up. The scenery is big and wild and it feels good to have my feet on the ground. Flying is a great way to see a lot of country with minimal effort but for me it doesn’t leave the same dept of impression as a walk. It is a partly cloudy day which is just as well. It is still hot and breakfast wasn’t sitting to well with me so about three quarters of the way in I turn around to make it slowly back to the car. Grey continued with the guide along a second glacier to reach a summer grazing area with Sheppard’s huts and stunning views of the high peaks all around. When we get back to the hotel a fourth pilot has arrived. Mukrim has to leave in a few days so it is great to have someone else to replace him.
July 15. It was a flyable day but once in the air it was rough and inverted. This launch is not very high and with the current conditions it is very much hit and miss weather one gets away or not. This time it is Mukrim again that misses and ends up in the landing field after 10 minutes. The air was very rough and inverted and after two hours of trying to get higher dark clouds started to form to the south with the sound of thunder reaching us, time to land
The 16th Grey, Pierre and I take the taxi up to Eagles nest. Halfway up the road is blocked by a new landslide. Tonnes of mud and rocks have spilled from the slope above the road. A reminder of the fragility of this man made oasis. The slopes are steep and the layer of arable soil lose and overlaying solid rock, the irrigation water a perfect lubricant to get things sliding. We walk across and catch another taxi to take us to the end of the road. It has been very warm and the air has been stable so we are having a late start. We are driving up because there is a few small clouds forming, giving us the hope to find some thermals. The walk up is pretty hot this late in the day and I suffer under the load of my glider and all the bivi gear. Getting ready and putting on a long john, fleece pants, pants and flight suit plus double down jacket is an energy sapping exercise when the temperature is over 30 degrees Celsius. The thermal cycles are weak and, as usual, across the slope. I shoot straight across the canyon and have to scratch a long time very close to the slope before I can relax a little. Pierre and Grey launch shortly after me but do not find the lift I got and sadly sink out to the village. I climb out and repeat the flight around Lady finger and Hunza peak. Then around 3 o’clock all thermal activity stops and I glide across the hunza valley towards The Rakaposhe side and get a glimpse of the enormous ice fields that surround this mountain. Then I glide back to Karimabad and phone Grey to come to the fort to take some pictures while I soar around it. Another great flight, I cant be to enthusiastic as Grey and Pierre bombed out, hopefully we get some more instability soon so we all get to fly this awesome scenery.
July 17. The sky is an azure bleu with not one single cloud. It is hot and nothing stirs. Time to play the tourist and visit the nearby fort. The Altit fort was build some 800 years ago and has some interesting Tibetan characteristics. The little village at its foot is unspoiled by concrete structures and is a maze of little alley ways. Prince Charles was here in 2002 and visited one of the local houses. The owner has turned the place into a shrine and points out were the prince sat and were he put his hand, all riveting stuff.
The village square is a water reservoir that doubles as the kids swimming pool and with this heat it is full of them, daring each other to jump the highest from the trees surrounding the water.
July 18. The stable conditions persist and we stabilise with it. We are becoming so stable, we hardly move. It was a day doing nothing more than eating, sleeping, internet and lamenting with the locals about the lack of tourists. The people here are getting a raw deal. First of all Osama blew up the twin towers and as a result the conflict spilled over the border into Pakistan. Pakistan is supporting the Americans so the Taliban fights against it with a few bomb attacks on the capital. As a result the tourism numbers have dropped to virtually nothing and the people relying on tourism are left to fend for themselves. Just imagine this happening in New Zealand or any other big tourist destination. The little town of Karimabad has developed on tourism with the main street lined with tourist shops full of carpets, shawls and other nick knacks. The streets are empty but the shop owners are still putting out there wares and sit in front of their shops eagerly awaiting the arrival of the hordes that are not coming. It is hard to look at the pour buggers sitting there day in and day out looking at us with expecting eyes. Yesterday I asked the guy at the ticket office for the fort how many visitors he had had. Two people had bought a ticket. We kind of laughed about it and decided that that was better then crying, which would scare away any potential client. On top of the perceived danger of terrorism they have to deal with a natural disaster that has come in the form of a land slide that has wiped out one village and has created a dam of a mile wide and some hundred metres high. The lake behind the dam is now 30km long and has drowned several villages and the Karakorum highway to China. All road transport to and from China has ceased and on top of that the road to the south is under reconstruction in a way that a trip that took 55minutes 5 years ago now takes 5 hours. If all this would befall any valley anywhere in the western world people would rise up and make sure that the rest of the world would know about there predicament and that their leaders would do something about it. Here the government is corrupt at all levels and the people seem in shock.
I wonder how much longer these people are going to take it before they rise up and revolt. I guess what saves them is the fact that most still have their land and grow their own potatoes and cereals and fruit.
July 19. Today is a day to forget for me. We went to the launch late as the conditions looked stable. Pierre hired a guide and porter and walked up a thousand metres above the launch site early in the morning. When we saw him climb up after launching we rushed up the mountain to join the puffy clouds that started to appear in the sky. As usual the thermal cycles were weak and across the hill and I repeated my routine by flying over the ravine to try and catch the lift on the other side. This time I was out of tune with the thermal cycles and sank out below the level from where to expect to work my way up again. Grey was 5 minutes behind me and worked his way up in no time. I worked hard above the fort in light lift, to the delight of the kids in the village who clapped and whistled at my efforts. I gained a few hundred metres but never got high enough to connect with the rocks and the soaring crows and my day was over in 20 minutes. Grey had an awesome flight, reached 6800metres and got pretty close to Rakaposhe.
July 20. The end is nigh. One more week and we will be leaving Pakistan. Today we woke to a cloudy sky and stumbled from breakfast to coffee, the first real one in 8 weeks, to a game of cards, to lunch and a siesta. Then at 2 in the afternoon we set of for a walk into the canyon that we fly over. There is an incredible feat of local engineering build on and in the wall of the canyon. They have blasted a ledge in the wall and build up the sides with dry stacked stone to create a canal that runs the water from the glacier nose into the village. The drop is sheer and several hundred metres deep in places and the walk along it a bid unnerving.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
July 11. Forget all I have said till now about big mountains. Big is a measure of your experience, just like heavy is a measure of your strength. If you are not very strong, then little weight feels heavy. Well I hadn’t seen any big mountains till now. Now I know what a big mountain looks like!!!!! I had a great little flight today, now further then 10Km away from launch but at the highest point 3300 metres above it. We went up to launch at 11 and it must have been after 12 when we launched. Again the airflow was across the hill but the thermal cycles were more frequent then yesterday. I climbed a bid further up the mountain then Mukrim but by the time I had my Vario working I was at the same level as him. We scratched around for a few minutes maintaining height and then I shot across the canyon that empties out the Ultar basin behind Karimabad. It saved the day for me as the lift was much stronger on the other side. Mukrim stayed behind and slowly sank out. The mountain crows showed me the way and later avulture took me to cloud base. I flew around the Lady finger and soared up to the top of Hunza peak at 6270 metres. I took some video and photos of the surrounding scenery and although I totally enjoyed the flight it was only when I saw back the images that I realised how totally awesome it was. I could have flown far but I paced myself and was happy to just boat around. When I walked up back to the hotel, Grey drove past in a mini van, just arriving from Gilgit. He has had enough of driving and has a soar bum because, like me, he hasn’t got much meat left on his arse.
We go out for dinner to the same place I went with Mukrim last night and we stuff our face with delicious mixed veggies, chicken and potatoes with pancakes for desert. It is great to be able to eat vegetables again and the effect on body and mind is noticeable.
July 12.The sky is filled with cumulus cloud early in the morning and by 10am it is OD ing. We have another rest day, fill ourselves up with food and visit this little town. We talk with many of the shop keepers and locals. It is the inauguration celebrations for the spiritual leader of the Ismalis Muslims, the predominant Muslim religion around here. As part of the celebrations the locals lid fires all around high in the mountains last night. Traditionally they would envelope big boulders in timber and roll those down the hill burning. The boulders have been replaced by used tires that they set alight with petrol. The effect is quiet spectacular in the dark. The tyres role for hundreds of metres down the hills leaving behind a trail of fire and at some point they would do a free fall of several hundred metres and then explode in a ball of fire at the bottom. A great way to get rid of used tires, NOT. Now we are all ready for some big flying tomorrow.
We go out for dinner to the same place I went with Mukrim last night and we stuff our face with delicious mixed veggies, chicken and potatoes with pancakes for desert. It is great to be able to eat vegetables again and the effect on body and mind is noticeable.
July 12.The sky is filled with cumulus cloud early in the morning and by 10am it is OD ing. We have another rest day, fill ourselves up with food and visit this little town. We talk with many of the shop keepers and locals. It is the inauguration celebrations for the spiritual leader of the Ismalis Muslims, the predominant Muslim religion around here. As part of the celebrations the locals lid fires all around high in the mountains last night. Traditionally they would envelope big boulders in timber and roll those down the hill burning. The boulders have been replaced by used tires that they set alight with petrol. The effect is quiet spectacular in the dark. The tyres role for hundreds of metres down the hills leaving behind a trail of fire and at some point they would do a free fall of several hundred metres and then explode in a ball of fire at the bottom. A great way to get rid of used tires, NOT. Now we are all ready for some big flying tomorrow.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Hi all. Im back in internet country but the connection is still to slow to send pictures. enjoy reding our adventures of the last ten days or so.26 June. The day took a sad turn, literally. Grey, Mukrim and Farhad went to the launch area at the summer palace where Farhad took off first. For some reason he flew away from the launch initiated a right hand turn and did a 355 degree turn into the hill. He took the impact with his right hand side and broke his shoulder and wrist. All the pilots of the valley were in town for a club meeting so he got plenty of support. It is sad and frightening to see the state of the local hospital. It is filthy and run down and will make me try harder to stay out of it. Grey and Mukrim did the rescue and were exhausted, a glide down into the valley is all they could manage.
27 June. It is Sunday today and there is not enough people to fill up a taxi. We are stuck in Chitral for one more day. The conditions are wearing us down. Our diet is not complete with all dairy products and fresh vegetables missing. The quality of the air in this town is not that great either with the burning of garbage and wood smoke. We have all had infected air ways and the usual stomach problems.
28 June. It took hours to fill up a taxi so that we had to wait in the taxi stand to hold our place. In the morning we missed out on an earlier taxi because we didn’t stay around. It gets unbearable hot and it is two o’clock before we get going. We pay for an extra seat so we have more room and we don’t have to wait any longer to fill up the car. The cushioning on my bud has worn a bid thin over the last five weeks and the five hours drive from Chitral to Mastuj is taking its toll on my derrière. The temporary bridge that we have crossed twice, since we have been in Chitral, is no longer. I didn’t get the full story but it either collapsed or washed away. It means an extra 15Km drive to the next bridge which in these parts means another hours drive. We check in in one of the guesthouses and go to the police station to write down our detail. We also find out that next days bus is totally booked out so that we have an extra day in this village. Our room has a garden court yard with some cherry trees laden with fruit which just happen to be ripe at the moment…..
In the evening I feel feverish and hit the sack early. We are in rural Pakistan here and we are meeting a different level of society. Here the young people want to leave. The economic situation is near hopeless and the administration is corrupt. It is tough to tell them the truth, there is very little chance that they will ever be able to get a visa or afford a plane ticket. Who M I to tell them to stay here and fight the system from within. I knew it already but questions like this emphasise again how lucky Im to have been born in Europe.
June 29. Just as well the bus was full. A days rest before we do the next 7 hours to the Yasin Valley is probably not a bad idea. I spent the day lounging around in the garden and go for a walk around the place. Im not feeling that great, which must have an impact on the way I see things. The place looks in decline with lots of the irrigation channels in disrepair and houses abandoned. It is still a green oasis in an environment of barren rock and the cherries tasted good.
June 30. The bus leaves at 6am so we are up nice and early. The ride takes us over the chandur pass, famous for its highest polo ground in the world, and then down into the valley that leads all the way to Gilgit. Iv taken my sleeping bag to sit on so the ride is a little more comfortable but I should have taken my earplugs as well. The chitraly music is very repetitive and monotonous to our ears and it is way to loud in the bus.
Grey has been doing the social networking and when he mentioned to Farhad that we intended to go to Yasin he got the address of some relative that has a summer house there. We got of the bus in Gupis and after a few phone calls we are in a taxi and on our way to the father of the chief of justice of Gilgit. We leave the narrow valley behind and the most spectacular landscape reveals it selves once the valley opens up. Snow covered peaks and rugged crags all around and the whole valley lush and green. It looks like Para Gliding heaven to me. The taxi drops us off at a walled property and stepping through the gate we enter a beautiful garden with roses and cherry trees laden with fruit. Nobody speaks more then a few words of English so the situation is a bid awkward at first but a grand child is summoned from somewhere to be our interpreter and things get organised. Bowls of cherries appear, thee gets served and introductions are made. It appears that we are staying with the father of the chief justice for one night and that we will move to his sons place tomorrow once that one has arrived from Gilgit. Im totally out of it, the bacteria are playing havoc with my guts and I have no energy left. A visit to the doctor next morning gets organised for me and I sleep away the rest of the afternoon. Were we with the descendants of the Chitraly royal family before, now we are with the descendants of the royal family of Varshigoom now called Jasin. There is some great flying potential here, the only thing is that there is no roads up the sides of the valley so to reach any take off we will have to walk. Iv gotten to weak to spent that kind of energy but Grey and Mukrim scout out some potential launch and landing sites.
July 1. In the morning a taxi gets organised and I get taken to the local hospital to have a consultation with the GP. I wile away the day in the vicinity of the bathroom and Grey and Mukrim go for some walks around the place. In the afternoon the chief justice arrives and a car get organised to take us to his house. He speaks perfectly English and we learn a great deal about the history of the valley. All rulers lost their power in the seventies when Bhuto declared that all people should be governed by democratic government, al the kingdoms got abolisched. The royals got banned from their lands and deported elsewhere. Now they are back but” apparently” have not much to say anymore in local government. In the valley alone there is some 1400 descendants of the royal family which, Im sure, must create quiet a power house in the local government. In the family summer residence we get a big room with en suite bathroom, tiled and clean, alas no hot water as the boiler is broken. Apart from the awkwardness that we are guests that have invited themselves and that the host doesn’t want anything in return, things are good. We get fed and anything we need gets organised.
July 2. The medication seems to work and my appetite has returned. I still feel very weak though and need a few more days to recuperate. Grey and Mukrim get picked up by the taxi at 9.30 and drive to the bottom of the hill. Our host has organised a few porters to carry their bags up the mountain. At noon I see them launch from about 400 metres above the valley floor and soon they climb to cloud base. Mukrim lands near the house in the riverbed after two hours and Grey flies a 60km tri angle and lands after 4 hours near the house we had stayed the first night. I borrow a bicycle and ride the 5km or so to where Grey is. By the time I arrive he has just finished packing and we get ushered into the walled family compound, away from the huge crowd that has gathered. Inside we sit in the traditional family room which is a rectangle with a square in the middle, formed by for carved wooden pillars. This is the place where the whole family lives in the winter. The men sleep on one side of the square and the women on the other. Inside the square is a stone cooking platform with a hole in the ceiling right above it for the smoke to escape.
The ceiling is made of poplar beams laid in a diamond pattern three or four layers deep.
It must get pretty cosy in the winter as in this family alone there are 8 adults, 16 grand children and the grand parents.
Food gets brought out for us and then thee and cherries. Grey shows his photos to all and he is the man. A taxi get organised for him and I cycle back home. People around here are not used to seeing foreigners especially not on a bicycle so I get a lot of attention on the way. That may also be because the kids in the compound have decorated me with roses so I look a bid like a dandy on a bike.
Grey’s flying stories are of massive 7000 metre high mountains and glaciers and many valley’s, I will have to be better tomorrow!
July 3. This time it is Mukrim who stays behind. He has been neglecting a cold and the last two nights he has been coughing his lungs out. We have banished him to the insolating cell so he can cough as much as he likes without keeping us awake. This morning he is feeling to weak. Im not yet back to my former self, which a few people much be happy about, but with a strong local boy carrying my bag up the hill, I can manage the flying. We make good time and before 11am we are on a spot about 500metres above the valley. Thermals are coming trough constantly and the sky is already filled with big cumulus. We promise each other to stay together and explore one of the side valleys to try and get close to one of the 7000metre peaks. However the sky gods have another idea in mind. After Take off, Grey finds a good thermal that takes him a few hundred metres above the launch site. When I Launch the sun disappears behind a cloud and it takes me a lot longer to get away. By the time Im up, Grey has sunk out low. We repeat this for the next hour till I have had enough. The wind is a lot stronger today and the shear level where the thermals meet the wind is not a nice place to be. Even though this shear level is at 4700metres we climb trough it often enough. When we get below 4000 it feels like we are getting low, the valley still 1500metres lower but the immensity of the landscape distorts all perspective. Our radio communications are not very professional and with those big gloves on not easy either. I decide to fly my own flight and cross the main valley to the windward side of the mountains. By now this is also the sunny side and the thermals are strong at some stage my Vario shows a constant 10 metres per second. I fly the length of the valley to Darkot where the glider decides to do its own thing and folds itself up, changes its mind, opens up again and throws in a little pirouette before giving me back the control. All this pretty much out of the bleu in a few seconds and to close to the summit of a 6000 metres peak to feel comfortable. And to think that I had just put away my video camera, bummer, would have made some interesting footage…… The cloud base has risen to 6000 metres like yesterday but with the stronger west wind the flying is not as good. After 4 hours I have had enough and glide to the landing field. The people have asked us to land near their house again and Grey has already gathered a big crowd with his landing. I have plenty of height to burn so I throw in a few spirals and wing overs and the crowd goes nuts. Grey is doing the crowd control and gets everybody to the side of the landing field before I land. When I touch down there must have been two hundred kids and adults running towards me and I land to a spontaneous applause. I get just enough time to bunch up my glider and swing it over my shoulder before they reach me. I walk straight into the walled compound and the door closes behind me leaving all the onlookers behind for Grey. The rest is a repeat of yesterdays, Cherries, delicious food and green thee and the smiles of 16 grand children and a grandpa to top it all of.
July 4. Today was set aside as a rest day for Grey and Mukrim which was perfect timing. It was windy and overcast in the morning so flying was not possible. Grey needs to go and see a doctor for the same reason as me and Mukrim is still coughing away. It is Sunday so Grey will have to wait till tomorrow before he will be able to go further then a few steps away from the toilet. We pass the day doing absolutely nothing and wonder how we manage. Somehow time passes and we are not part of it. Breakfast, lunch and dinner get served on time and we don’t have to think about anything. Yesterday we heard rumours and today we got confirmation that the one big event of the year, the Shandur polo festival, has been cancelled. The two provinces cant agree on who is responsible for the event and are disputing the boundaries of the province. It is a political game with the people the big losers. Very sad.
July 6. Shajjad from Islamabad still seems to think that there is going to be some sort of event at Shandur pass so he is driving up with his bus and 25 pilots. They have been asked to put up an air show and fly into the festival grounds. I had decided long ago that it is not going to be my sort of scene so I had decided to move on to Karimabad. However, after our little outing today I have decided to stay in this valley for a few more days. We hired a taxi and drove to the head of the valley. We took plenty of photos and even watching them now, just having been there, they don’t reflect what we just witnessed. The valley ends in a sort of enormous amphitheatre formed by 6000 metre high mountains. The summits are draped in fluted snow fields that end in big hanging glaciers. Further down the main glaciers collect all the falling ice and snake down to the valley like giant high ways. Around the village the fields are an emerald green and the sky was dark bleu. Its all on such a huge scale and such a intense, unspoiled beauty that it is hard to describe. The whole area so asks to be explored from the air that I cant leave this place without having a go at it. Again the people are very friendly and on my walk I had to refuse their offers for cups of thee several times or risk blowing up my bladder.
June 7. This morning Im going it alone. Grey and Mukrim are leaving for Chandur at lunch time, so I take the taxi to the bottom of the hill by myself. The conditions look great and again we start walking to late. I think this site is on early in the morning and a good launch time would be 10.30. When we walk up, yes Im using a porter again, the thermals come trough strong but by the time Im ready to take off the sun has gone to the side of the hill and thermals are less frequent. It is so bad that I almost bomb out and I have to pull all the tricks out of the bag to stay in the air. The house thermal is not working and it is not soar able. I try my luck further away from the hill and find something to get me back to take off height but then I lose it. I go for drastic measures and fly across a valley onto some scree slopes that are baking in the sun. It is still not convincing and it takes a lot of manoeuvring to work my way up high enough to cross the main valley and finally hit the good stuff. When you only get one shot at the day and you have to walk two hours to get to the launch site there sure is a good incentive to try a bid harder.
From then on it all becomes easy and the next hour to reach the head of the valley is a walk in the park. It looks very feasible to fly close up to those awesome glaciers that we saw yesterday during our excursion by road. Now I just have to make the right choice, or I go wide and follow the sunny sides of the mountains or I go straight across onto these massive walls of ice and hope for some dynamic lift. Small thermal clouds are actually forming on the shady side of the mountain and I decide for the direct route. What a totally awesome spectacle. There is no way to describe it. Im flying over miles and miles of ice and Im thermaling up on some lift generated by the few rocks that are not covered by snow. I glide along the entire north face of this mountain towards a saddle that I arrive just a bid to low at to see what is on the other side. I have not the faintest idea of the lay of the land on the other side and have to make up my route while Im there. I find some lift at the far end of the saddle and get enough height to glide back and get a look over to the other side. I have two seconds to make up my mind whether to go across this pass or not. In those two seconds I see a massive wall of ice, a glacier at the bottom of the valley and a rock face at the sunny side and way down a river that seems to flow to the south. I pop over and immediately regret it. The rocks are not that high above the glacier and the lift generated by them is very broken. The bag of tricks is being called on for the second time today and the prospect of a 3 day walk out keeps me fighting. It works and the reward for this act of, well’ you decide, act of bravery? is a flight to the summit of this 6500metre high monster of ice and rock called Tuy mountain. I get to the sunny side which has more exposed rock and easily thermal to the top. From this altitude the topography of the area is clear and I can see my way back home. It is only 2.30 and I have a “What now” moment. What do you do after such a spectacle? I decide to put the Chandur pass into the “Go To” on my GPS and find that it is only 82km away. I make good progress for the first 15km but then it gets more cloudy ahead. With many more mountains to cross and a totally unknown lay of the land I decide that I have pushed my luck enough for today and head for home. I only have to fly out of this one valley for 15km and I will be home where the cherries and green thee are waiting for me. I cant figure out what is going on with the air. I hid massive sink and headwind, then get propelled up in erratic thermals to fall out of the sky again with a tail wind. The prospect of a landing in this narrow valley looms and the walk out would be a total bummer. I skim the mountain side to catch as many bubbles as I can and slowly get to the mouth of the valley with a sigh of relief. I go on final glide, clear the last power lines with one metre to spare and touch down at the far end of the landing field. My approach was so low that nobody saw me coming and for the first time there are no hordes of kids to deal with. What a totally awesome day!
July 7. I have decided that today is going to be my last day in this piece of heaven. There is much more flying to be done but I somehow don’t need any more. Also I feel that we have stayed with these people for long enough and shouldn’t abuse their hospitality. When Grey and Mukrim left for Chandur I moved back to the house where we spent the first night. The guy that runs the show here is the village police man and the cousin of the chief justice. A guy with quite a bid of status and today was the day that he wanted to show off his European visitor to the village. He speaks hardly any English but goes out of his way to help us. We walked up to the place where the old fort used to be. In the 16th century the sikks came from what is now India and invaded Yasin. A big battle was fought around the fort and thousands of people died. Not much is left of the structure but it still is a great spot with a dominating view over the valley. On our way back we stop by the one hotel in the village to find a group of people that have just finished a 5 day tracking from Chitral to Yasin. The surreal thing is that they are watching the world cup soccer semi final between Uruguay and Holland on TV. Iv been away from the Netherlands long enough to feel impartial but it is still great to see them win. Once back home, after lunch and a siesta I find out that the grand father is not as healthy as he looks. They were going to put him in the same taxi bus as me tomorrow morning to take him to Gilgit.I doubt he would survive the ride. I can afford to pay a private taxi for both of us and it is a way to thank them for their hospitality, I also will not need to be on the side of the road at 5am tomorrow morning to wait for the taxi bus…….
July 8. A transit day today but what a spectacular drive from Gupis to Gilgit. The phandar river turnes into a big volume of water that at times get compressed into a narrow gorge and thunders down rapids. The small green irrigated islands of cultivated fields contrast sharply with the barren rock all around. It is a lot warmer in this valley and by the time we get to Gilgit it is outright hot. I check in into one of the better hotels in Gilgit and enjoy the first non Pakistani meal in 7 weeks. Chicken sweet and sour never tasted that good. I also have a proper bath room and enjoy my first real shower with warm water in seven weeks as well. Till now it has been mainly buckets of cold water and the occasional cold shower. It is such a handicap to know about all those luxury things like hot showers and different types of food. Without the knowledge of existence of those things the yearning for them would not be there and acceptance of conditions or situations not an issue. I sometimes wonder how different life would have been if I wouldn’t have known about sex….
Anyway, where was I. After a late lunch a great shower and a bid of world cup on TV I venture out in the late afternoon heat to find a place to fill up my Oxygen bottle and buy some supplies for the bus trip to Karimabad tomorrow. Again the people are supper helpful and in no time I find the person that supplies the whole area with Oxygen. As the bottle in his shop doesn’t give enough pressure he takes me to his store room where he has hundreds of cylinders. My connector doesn’t quiet fit on his bottles so he fits another one on my setup and away I go. With a full bottle I can have a go at the altitude record or, failing that, at least stay warm above 6000 metres for an hour or two. Rakaposhi with its 7788 metres is visible from Gilgit and Karimabad is right at its base.
27 June. It is Sunday today and there is not enough people to fill up a taxi. We are stuck in Chitral for one more day. The conditions are wearing us down. Our diet is not complete with all dairy products and fresh vegetables missing. The quality of the air in this town is not that great either with the burning of garbage and wood smoke. We have all had infected air ways and the usual stomach problems.
28 June. It took hours to fill up a taxi so that we had to wait in the taxi stand to hold our place. In the morning we missed out on an earlier taxi because we didn’t stay around. It gets unbearable hot and it is two o’clock before we get going. We pay for an extra seat so we have more room and we don’t have to wait any longer to fill up the car. The cushioning on my bud has worn a bid thin over the last five weeks and the five hours drive from Chitral to Mastuj is taking its toll on my derrière. The temporary bridge that we have crossed twice, since we have been in Chitral, is no longer. I didn’t get the full story but it either collapsed or washed away. It means an extra 15Km drive to the next bridge which in these parts means another hours drive. We check in in one of the guesthouses and go to the police station to write down our detail. We also find out that next days bus is totally booked out so that we have an extra day in this village. Our room has a garden court yard with some cherry trees laden with fruit which just happen to be ripe at the moment…..
In the evening I feel feverish and hit the sack early. We are in rural Pakistan here and we are meeting a different level of society. Here the young people want to leave. The economic situation is near hopeless and the administration is corrupt. It is tough to tell them the truth, there is very little chance that they will ever be able to get a visa or afford a plane ticket. Who M I to tell them to stay here and fight the system from within. I knew it already but questions like this emphasise again how lucky Im to have been born in Europe.
June 29. Just as well the bus was full. A days rest before we do the next 7 hours to the Yasin Valley is probably not a bad idea. I spent the day lounging around in the garden and go for a walk around the place. Im not feeling that great, which must have an impact on the way I see things. The place looks in decline with lots of the irrigation channels in disrepair and houses abandoned. It is still a green oasis in an environment of barren rock and the cherries tasted good.
June 30. The bus leaves at 6am so we are up nice and early. The ride takes us over the chandur pass, famous for its highest polo ground in the world, and then down into the valley that leads all the way to Gilgit. Iv taken my sleeping bag to sit on so the ride is a little more comfortable but I should have taken my earplugs as well. The chitraly music is very repetitive and monotonous to our ears and it is way to loud in the bus.
Grey has been doing the social networking and when he mentioned to Farhad that we intended to go to Yasin he got the address of some relative that has a summer house there. We got of the bus in Gupis and after a few phone calls we are in a taxi and on our way to the father of the chief of justice of Gilgit. We leave the narrow valley behind and the most spectacular landscape reveals it selves once the valley opens up. Snow covered peaks and rugged crags all around and the whole valley lush and green. It looks like Para Gliding heaven to me. The taxi drops us off at a walled property and stepping through the gate we enter a beautiful garden with roses and cherry trees laden with fruit. Nobody speaks more then a few words of English so the situation is a bid awkward at first but a grand child is summoned from somewhere to be our interpreter and things get organised. Bowls of cherries appear, thee gets served and introductions are made. It appears that we are staying with the father of the chief justice for one night and that we will move to his sons place tomorrow once that one has arrived from Gilgit. Im totally out of it, the bacteria are playing havoc with my guts and I have no energy left. A visit to the doctor next morning gets organised for me and I sleep away the rest of the afternoon. Were we with the descendants of the Chitraly royal family before, now we are with the descendants of the royal family of Varshigoom now called Jasin. There is some great flying potential here, the only thing is that there is no roads up the sides of the valley so to reach any take off we will have to walk. Iv gotten to weak to spent that kind of energy but Grey and Mukrim scout out some potential launch and landing sites.
July 1. In the morning a taxi gets organised and I get taken to the local hospital to have a consultation with the GP. I wile away the day in the vicinity of the bathroom and Grey and Mukrim go for some walks around the place. In the afternoon the chief justice arrives and a car get organised to take us to his house. He speaks perfectly English and we learn a great deal about the history of the valley. All rulers lost their power in the seventies when Bhuto declared that all people should be governed by democratic government, al the kingdoms got abolisched. The royals got banned from their lands and deported elsewhere. Now they are back but” apparently” have not much to say anymore in local government. In the valley alone there is some 1400 descendants of the royal family which, Im sure, must create quiet a power house in the local government. In the family summer residence we get a big room with en suite bathroom, tiled and clean, alas no hot water as the boiler is broken. Apart from the awkwardness that we are guests that have invited themselves and that the host doesn’t want anything in return, things are good. We get fed and anything we need gets organised.
July 2. The medication seems to work and my appetite has returned. I still feel very weak though and need a few more days to recuperate. Grey and Mukrim get picked up by the taxi at 9.30 and drive to the bottom of the hill. Our host has organised a few porters to carry their bags up the mountain. At noon I see them launch from about 400 metres above the valley floor and soon they climb to cloud base. Mukrim lands near the house in the riverbed after two hours and Grey flies a 60km tri angle and lands after 4 hours near the house we had stayed the first night. I borrow a bicycle and ride the 5km or so to where Grey is. By the time I arrive he has just finished packing and we get ushered into the walled family compound, away from the huge crowd that has gathered. Inside we sit in the traditional family room which is a rectangle with a square in the middle, formed by for carved wooden pillars. This is the place where the whole family lives in the winter. The men sleep on one side of the square and the women on the other. Inside the square is a stone cooking platform with a hole in the ceiling right above it for the smoke to escape.
The ceiling is made of poplar beams laid in a diamond pattern three or four layers deep.
It must get pretty cosy in the winter as in this family alone there are 8 adults, 16 grand children and the grand parents.
Food gets brought out for us and then thee and cherries. Grey shows his photos to all and he is the man. A taxi get organised for him and I cycle back home. People around here are not used to seeing foreigners especially not on a bicycle so I get a lot of attention on the way. That may also be because the kids in the compound have decorated me with roses so I look a bid like a dandy on a bike.
Grey’s flying stories are of massive 7000 metre high mountains and glaciers and many valley’s, I will have to be better tomorrow!
July 3. This time it is Mukrim who stays behind. He has been neglecting a cold and the last two nights he has been coughing his lungs out. We have banished him to the insolating cell so he can cough as much as he likes without keeping us awake. This morning he is feeling to weak. Im not yet back to my former self, which a few people much be happy about, but with a strong local boy carrying my bag up the hill, I can manage the flying. We make good time and before 11am we are on a spot about 500metres above the valley. Thermals are coming trough constantly and the sky is already filled with big cumulus. We promise each other to stay together and explore one of the side valleys to try and get close to one of the 7000metre peaks. However the sky gods have another idea in mind. After Take off, Grey finds a good thermal that takes him a few hundred metres above the launch site. When I Launch the sun disappears behind a cloud and it takes me a lot longer to get away. By the time Im up, Grey has sunk out low. We repeat this for the next hour till I have had enough. The wind is a lot stronger today and the shear level where the thermals meet the wind is not a nice place to be. Even though this shear level is at 4700metres we climb trough it often enough. When we get below 4000 it feels like we are getting low, the valley still 1500metres lower but the immensity of the landscape distorts all perspective. Our radio communications are not very professional and with those big gloves on not easy either. I decide to fly my own flight and cross the main valley to the windward side of the mountains. By now this is also the sunny side and the thermals are strong at some stage my Vario shows a constant 10 metres per second. I fly the length of the valley to Darkot where the glider decides to do its own thing and folds itself up, changes its mind, opens up again and throws in a little pirouette before giving me back the control. All this pretty much out of the bleu in a few seconds and to close to the summit of a 6000 metres peak to feel comfortable. And to think that I had just put away my video camera, bummer, would have made some interesting footage…… The cloud base has risen to 6000 metres like yesterday but with the stronger west wind the flying is not as good. After 4 hours I have had enough and glide to the landing field. The people have asked us to land near their house again and Grey has already gathered a big crowd with his landing. I have plenty of height to burn so I throw in a few spirals and wing overs and the crowd goes nuts. Grey is doing the crowd control and gets everybody to the side of the landing field before I land. When I touch down there must have been two hundred kids and adults running towards me and I land to a spontaneous applause. I get just enough time to bunch up my glider and swing it over my shoulder before they reach me. I walk straight into the walled compound and the door closes behind me leaving all the onlookers behind for Grey. The rest is a repeat of yesterdays, Cherries, delicious food and green thee and the smiles of 16 grand children and a grandpa to top it all of.
July 4. Today was set aside as a rest day for Grey and Mukrim which was perfect timing. It was windy and overcast in the morning so flying was not possible. Grey needs to go and see a doctor for the same reason as me and Mukrim is still coughing away. It is Sunday so Grey will have to wait till tomorrow before he will be able to go further then a few steps away from the toilet. We pass the day doing absolutely nothing and wonder how we manage. Somehow time passes and we are not part of it. Breakfast, lunch and dinner get served on time and we don’t have to think about anything. Yesterday we heard rumours and today we got confirmation that the one big event of the year, the Shandur polo festival, has been cancelled. The two provinces cant agree on who is responsible for the event and are disputing the boundaries of the province. It is a political game with the people the big losers. Very sad.
July 6. Shajjad from Islamabad still seems to think that there is going to be some sort of event at Shandur pass so he is driving up with his bus and 25 pilots. They have been asked to put up an air show and fly into the festival grounds. I had decided long ago that it is not going to be my sort of scene so I had decided to move on to Karimabad. However, after our little outing today I have decided to stay in this valley for a few more days. We hired a taxi and drove to the head of the valley. We took plenty of photos and even watching them now, just having been there, they don’t reflect what we just witnessed. The valley ends in a sort of enormous amphitheatre formed by 6000 metre high mountains. The summits are draped in fluted snow fields that end in big hanging glaciers. Further down the main glaciers collect all the falling ice and snake down to the valley like giant high ways. Around the village the fields are an emerald green and the sky was dark bleu. Its all on such a huge scale and such a intense, unspoiled beauty that it is hard to describe. The whole area so asks to be explored from the air that I cant leave this place without having a go at it. Again the people are very friendly and on my walk I had to refuse their offers for cups of thee several times or risk blowing up my bladder.
June 7. This morning Im going it alone. Grey and Mukrim are leaving for Chandur at lunch time, so I take the taxi to the bottom of the hill by myself. The conditions look great and again we start walking to late. I think this site is on early in the morning and a good launch time would be 10.30. When we walk up, yes Im using a porter again, the thermals come trough strong but by the time Im ready to take off the sun has gone to the side of the hill and thermals are less frequent. It is so bad that I almost bomb out and I have to pull all the tricks out of the bag to stay in the air. The house thermal is not working and it is not soar able. I try my luck further away from the hill and find something to get me back to take off height but then I lose it. I go for drastic measures and fly across a valley onto some scree slopes that are baking in the sun. It is still not convincing and it takes a lot of manoeuvring to work my way up high enough to cross the main valley and finally hit the good stuff. When you only get one shot at the day and you have to walk two hours to get to the launch site there sure is a good incentive to try a bid harder.
From then on it all becomes easy and the next hour to reach the head of the valley is a walk in the park. It looks very feasible to fly close up to those awesome glaciers that we saw yesterday during our excursion by road. Now I just have to make the right choice, or I go wide and follow the sunny sides of the mountains or I go straight across onto these massive walls of ice and hope for some dynamic lift. Small thermal clouds are actually forming on the shady side of the mountain and I decide for the direct route. What a totally awesome spectacle. There is no way to describe it. Im flying over miles and miles of ice and Im thermaling up on some lift generated by the few rocks that are not covered by snow. I glide along the entire north face of this mountain towards a saddle that I arrive just a bid to low at to see what is on the other side. I have not the faintest idea of the lay of the land on the other side and have to make up my route while Im there. I find some lift at the far end of the saddle and get enough height to glide back and get a look over to the other side. I have two seconds to make up my mind whether to go across this pass or not. In those two seconds I see a massive wall of ice, a glacier at the bottom of the valley and a rock face at the sunny side and way down a river that seems to flow to the south. I pop over and immediately regret it. The rocks are not that high above the glacier and the lift generated by them is very broken. The bag of tricks is being called on for the second time today and the prospect of a 3 day walk out keeps me fighting. It works and the reward for this act of, well’ you decide, act of bravery? is a flight to the summit of this 6500metre high monster of ice and rock called Tuy mountain. I get to the sunny side which has more exposed rock and easily thermal to the top. From this altitude the topography of the area is clear and I can see my way back home. It is only 2.30 and I have a “What now” moment. What do you do after such a spectacle? I decide to put the Chandur pass into the “Go To” on my GPS and find that it is only 82km away. I make good progress for the first 15km but then it gets more cloudy ahead. With many more mountains to cross and a totally unknown lay of the land I decide that I have pushed my luck enough for today and head for home. I only have to fly out of this one valley for 15km and I will be home where the cherries and green thee are waiting for me. I cant figure out what is going on with the air. I hid massive sink and headwind, then get propelled up in erratic thermals to fall out of the sky again with a tail wind. The prospect of a landing in this narrow valley looms and the walk out would be a total bummer. I skim the mountain side to catch as many bubbles as I can and slowly get to the mouth of the valley with a sigh of relief. I go on final glide, clear the last power lines with one metre to spare and touch down at the far end of the landing field. My approach was so low that nobody saw me coming and for the first time there are no hordes of kids to deal with. What a totally awesome day!
July 7. I have decided that today is going to be my last day in this piece of heaven. There is much more flying to be done but I somehow don’t need any more. Also I feel that we have stayed with these people for long enough and shouldn’t abuse their hospitality. When Grey and Mukrim left for Chandur I moved back to the house where we spent the first night. The guy that runs the show here is the village police man and the cousin of the chief justice. A guy with quite a bid of status and today was the day that he wanted to show off his European visitor to the village. He speaks hardly any English but goes out of his way to help us. We walked up to the place where the old fort used to be. In the 16th century the sikks came from what is now India and invaded Yasin. A big battle was fought around the fort and thousands of people died. Not much is left of the structure but it still is a great spot with a dominating view over the valley. On our way back we stop by the one hotel in the village to find a group of people that have just finished a 5 day tracking from Chitral to Yasin. The surreal thing is that they are watching the world cup soccer semi final between Uruguay and Holland on TV. Iv been away from the Netherlands long enough to feel impartial but it is still great to see them win. Once back home, after lunch and a siesta I find out that the grand father is not as healthy as he looks. They were going to put him in the same taxi bus as me tomorrow morning to take him to Gilgit.I doubt he would survive the ride. I can afford to pay a private taxi for both of us and it is a way to thank them for their hospitality, I also will not need to be on the side of the road at 5am tomorrow morning to wait for the taxi bus…….
July 8. A transit day today but what a spectacular drive from Gupis to Gilgit. The phandar river turnes into a big volume of water that at times get compressed into a narrow gorge and thunders down rapids. The small green irrigated islands of cultivated fields contrast sharply with the barren rock all around. It is a lot warmer in this valley and by the time we get to Gilgit it is outright hot. I check in into one of the better hotels in Gilgit and enjoy the first non Pakistani meal in 7 weeks. Chicken sweet and sour never tasted that good. I also have a proper bath room and enjoy my first real shower with warm water in seven weeks as well. Till now it has been mainly buckets of cold water and the occasional cold shower. It is such a handicap to know about all those luxury things like hot showers and different types of food. Without the knowledge of existence of those things the yearning for them would not be there and acceptance of conditions or situations not an issue. I sometimes wonder how different life would have been if I wouldn’t have known about sex….
Anyway, where was I. After a late lunch a great shower and a bid of world cup on TV I venture out in the late afternoon heat to find a place to fill up my Oxygen bottle and buy some supplies for the bus trip to Karimabad tomorrow. Again the people are supper helpful and in no time I find the person that supplies the whole area with Oxygen. As the bottle in his shop doesn’t give enough pressure he takes me to his store room where he has hundreds of cylinders. My connector doesn’t quiet fit on his bottles so he fits another one on my setup and away I go. With a full bottle I can have a go at the altitude record or, failing that, at least stay warm above 6000 metres for an hour or two. Rakaposhi with its 7788 metres is visible from Gilgit and Karimabad is right at its base.
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