I woke up at about 6am, and had a Chai and some Paratas with my host. I don’t know how to emphasize enough just how hospitable these people are. There’s no thought of them wanting to charge you money, they just want you to be comfortable. Usually it takes all my imagination to think of something that they might accept.
Anyway, this guy and his family run a small shop/public phone and vehicle service operation. I soon realized my mistake in landing at the bottom of the valley. It wasn’t going to be so easy to find (and walk up to) a suitable launch, so I decided to hitch a ride up to the Shandur pass (about 20km). Here, hitching has a near 100% success rate – if a car passes and it has a place, it will almost certainly take you.
The Shandur pass polo festival starts on the 7th July, so I managed to get a ride on the back of the police polo teams’ truck. It was probably the best way to travel – I just sat on my bag in the back, watching the views. It took about 2 hours! Once we arrived at the start of the pass, they stopped to set up camp. The whole pass was full of polo horses and huge tents. I walked the length of the pass (about an hour), and planned to try and take off at the other end. As I was approaching the end, an army truck offered me a lift to Mastuj. I had planned to get off the truck before it started descending, but in the end I missed my moment and had to stay on for another 4 hours or so, standing in the back, on a road that makes the Cenes track look like a racing circuit. Finally, I stood in the back of a public jeep for 1.5 hours to complete the last 20km to Booni. The whole journey would be 50 km straight line!!
Demian
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