Mazar i Sharif

...in the end it took us two days instead of one to get the afghan visa in the dusty consulate, and again a day later we then crossed the Afghan-Uzbek Friendship Bridge in Hairatan over the Amu Darya river.
Obviously, the two heroes have to admit they were a little nervous arriving at the Afghan post, regarding the fact that RidingKismet is not fully dressed according to the local rules and regulations in terms of dress and behavior. The offices in the Afghan side are dusty, and as so often we are encircled by border officials interested in our stuff. Scan the luggage, stamp passport and road pass, and off we go -
Along the desert dunes south to Mazar i Sharif. Somewhere we are stopped at a fort because the local Taliban commander wants to say hello. After ~90 km we are welcomed at hotel Rahat in colourful Mazar i Sharif.

What a contrast to the northern "Stans"!
The people are very mixed in terms of facial features, skin and hair colour, and dress. Curious eyes are constantly on us. "Hovaryou" some greet with the little english-sounding syllables they learned somewhere, some are happy to accompany us for a bit to have a small chat - and nobody takes pictures of us, which feels like a relieving novelty after the experiences in the past weeks.

We roam around the city, manage to get a SIM card (and are annoyed that women pay 15$, men 10$). We find an ATM that accepts foreign bank cards and are happy to have some kebab. We play table football with some kids in a hidden street in the bazars (and lose).
We share a taxi with five others to go to the ancient city of Balkh, climb the old city wall and watch the kids flying their kites made out of sticks and trash. We get an ice cream and are suddenly invited for a big lunch.
We think of this society, so different from the northern "Stans" and obviously from our home lands, that despite the introduction of fuel burning engines and smart phones, throughout decades of armed conflicts, maybe kept it's shape and way of everyday life.

We didn't yet process the experiences of the first three days after crossing the border, but since we want to see as much as possible of this country in the limited time span of the visa, we saddle our donkeys and push on
- to Badakhshan!Leggi altro