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AFGHANISTAN DIARY 1970 ... Part 5July 23,1970 - Puli Kumri By 7 a.m. we depart Bamian, standing braced in the bed of an ancient truck. Like babies in a crib, we grip the bars and peer out at the harsh but so impressive landscape. Our truck lurches along the centuries-old, sandy riverbed road, eventually turning off our path of the first day to zigzag around the bends of one of the deepest gorges I’ve ever encountered. Steep faces of twisted, churning, craggy rocks vibrate in golds to russets to blacks, greys, pinks and browns. At strategic points, crumbling watchtowers appear overlooking the approaches from precarious rocky heights and, once, we see a fortress with a still-visible wall sprawling up and down and over the whole hillside. Around noon the truck halts at a second tea stall where trillions of turbaned men sit drinking tea. Strange. Such a bustling spot in the middle of empty hillsides. We never expected practically the whole tea stall to get up and converge on our truck. Fortunately, the driver made sure that I was already ensconced in the top crib overhanging the cab of the truck from which I could look down relatively unaffectedly upon the swarming field of squash-shaped turbans. Even so, where we had been three, we became ten, with hobnailed shoes digging into thighs, knees into ribs, and rails of the cage bumping soft skin as we roll onward. I am lucky. The fellows fare far worse, squashed as they are in the bottom of the truck bed amidst several dozen squatting, jabbering, spitting, sizable Afghanis. The walls of vermilion rock that I see from my swaying perch - deserts of convoluting cardovans; the play of shadows on craggy cliffs, russet of rocky, sandy ranges; river valleys hidden eventually by the very numbers of the folding ridges. A lunch stop for delicious soup and eternal nan. The driver hustles the four of us back to the truck and packs us in the desirable front basket over the cab. Even so, a couple of quickies see what he is up to and race over to push themselves in too. Did we really sit with legs bent double for five hours and no time or place to stretch? Drops of rain spatter, and under the sleeping bag we wriggle toes, fidget in turns, twist an ankle or a thigh and pass the time giggling at ridiculous commentaries on our circumstances. Muscles, bladders and bowels are strained to precarious points of endurance when, at last, we collapse out of our little basket here in Puli Kumri and make our way, more or less in a daze, via darling, colorful horse cart to THE Klub Hotel - with showers! Two hot ones and two cold ones. Worn out, we head back to town for a meal and a quick look, buy a melon, and come home to fall into our four beds. Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8
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Copyright 2004-09 Barbara Brewster | Website by Sharyn Peacocke & RangeWeb |
