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AFGHANISTAN DIARY 1970 ... Part 4July 22, 1970 - Bamian and Band-I-Amir Lakes By jeep to Band-I-Amir. Our little group, the Swiss couple, and Hans, Ira, Tim and me, swathed in coverings and clothes in the Russian Volga, joking and talking in the early morning chill. We bounce along the bumpy track, passing beside the beautiful rocky mountain slopes of the Koh-I-baba range opposite. After a couple of hours we stop in the nothingness of this vast wind-swept space for chai and nan and curdled butter. We continue on, through landscape looking as if it’s been swept clean by a mighty broom. It gives way to rolling hills with tufts of tough, weedy grasses, good only for fire and tinder. Patchy tents of the nomads are frequently pitched where the hills yield a grassy crease, their donkeys, goats and lanky camels foraging about, busily devouring some kind of feed. It’s always exciting to see a camel, and then many more, munching their way across a hillside. Eventually we come to know that this heralds the proximity of a camping caravan. Cresting a hill, we’re suddenly hit like a blow by our first view of the Band-I-Amir lakes. Here amidst the dung-dry vista of rocky plains is the most vibrant, intense gem of water blazing royal blue. Beyond, high above, salmon pink palisades and craggy faces of variegated cliffs form an almost unreal and eerie setting for the lake. On closer view, we can see how crystal clear the water is. Ledges of underwater rock gleam perfectly defined in luminescent turquoise. A natural dam overflows with mighty showers. Like a hot springs, the minerals have colored and veined rock and earth, and below, the water flows in swift, shallow rivulets, spreading fans in a broad descent to the next terrace, and the next .... On the shore stand horses, huts, donkeys, VW busses. We picnic on omelets and tea, gasp in a swift swim, walk and talk. Always, the people one is with color the environment, no matter how spectacular, unless one can escape to solitude with nature. After much haggling, our driver agrees to take the Dutch couple on the jeep with us. Back at our Bamian guest house for hot-dippers of bath water and a delicious meal of Kabuli pulau sitting on the Persian carpet. The room is crowded with kneeling, squatting, talking foreigners and a few smiling-on Afghanies. Tonight we sleep with eight in our bedroom. Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8
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