Back East to Remote Lands

From Mazar-i-Sharif to Wakhan.

Instead of going straight south to Kabul, we decided to take a detour east into the remote lands of the Wakhan Corridor. Remember, we passed this region a couple of days ago on the Tajik side, so we needed to experience it from the Afghan side and shake hands with the people we waved at.
Our journey out of Mazar-i-Sharif lead us through one of these "shortcuts" to Kunduz - a shortcut of dust and madness through the desert. When we arrived at our hotel in Kunduz, covered in dust, everybody looked surprised since there was a wedding going on, while we rocked up looking more rough than usual. "Didn't anyone warn you not to take that road?", we were asked by our host...

Kunduz is far less urban than Mazar-i-Sharif and far more conservative (in fact, the hotel is run by the Taliban), so we didn't want to stick around for long and got the fuck out early next morning towards Faizabad.
On the way there, we experienced some of the wonderful Afghan road characteristics, starting with people fistbumping or handing us drinx while riding, funny overtaking maneuvers, and animals on the loose. The roads in the villages are muddy and RidingKismet experiences a slip, turning the motorcycle clothes into camouflage colours. Locals make her sit in full gear underneath a water well, soaking her top to bottom.
On the road, a young family from Faizabad stopped us to invite us to stay at their place. It became one of these beautiful encounters where people that have very little but a lot of love give us all they have to feel comfortable. Thank you, Zahrat, Shadāb, and daughters ❤️
From Faizabad we continue to Eshkashem. The road leading through magical valleys is tarmac in times, and rocks in others. After a coffee at the river, RidingKismet fell again (not for the first time), but two times heavily on the left knee. That's bad this time, so bad that we considered to stop a car and let somebody ride the bike, while she sits in the car. But either nobody knows (or dares) to ride Kismet, or they are too uncomfortable to sit in a car, four men and a foreign woman. So, bite the bullet, with patience and pain we eventually made it to Marco Polo guest house in Eshkashem.

Eshkashem, on the maps it is written in Latin, Persian, and Cyrillic alphabets as the town was cut by geopolitical decisions of old men. People were forced to split into two governments in the so called Great Game, creating a buffer zone in between the British and the Russian empires, cutting families and an entire micro cosmos in half.

Here we sat down now, in an outpost of Afghan civilization. Nature loving Ismailis pray next to the creek, and we reevaluate our situation. What next? Enter the Wakhan, with a stiff and hurting knee on the bike? And what about the ignited border skirmishes with Pakistan? Will we be able to enter?
Time to calm down and see what comes to us.

Salamat, dears!Leggi altro