Hunza: The Heart of the Karakoram
The title of this entry is perhaps a bit misleading. It would probably be fairer to say that Baltistan, in Pakistan’s northeast corner is the TRUE heart of the Karakoram, since it contains four of the five 8000m peaks in the country, (and the fifth, Nanga Parbat is technically not part of the Karakoram range) as well as its longest glaciers. Hunza, however, has a decided advantage in the race for the title: the district is right on the Karakoram Highway, and receives plenty of visitors anxious to explore its renowned beauty. So perhaps I should have called this entry “Hunza: The Most Commonly Visited, Very Pretty and Full of 7000m Snow Capped Mountains, Part, But Still Not Quite the Exact HEART of The Karakoram.” But that wouldn’t have had the same ring to it, and would have been a bit verbose even for someone with a writing style as chaotically baroque as mine.
Shall we continue?
Lets:
I started the 23 or so km walk from Minapin to Karimabad at about 08:45. An entirely civilized time to be up and about.
The beginning of the trip was quite straightforward. Just follow the jeep road towards the net village. This was made a bit more difficult at one point by a small landslide. The section of the road blockage was only about 3m across, but the slope was made of far-from-solid rubble, and it was a loooong way down if I mis-stepped, or if the slope gave way. This bit of nervousness dealt with, I continued following the road, now with a young Pakistani boy at my side. He vanished near the start of the first village I came to. This was a bit of a shame, as it was the only time on the entire walk when the trail was difficult to discern. The jeep track disappeared as I wandered through the village, and it took a few minutes of wandering around near the very steep edge of the nala (gorge/canyon) nearby before I was able to spot the trail leading down into it, across the remains of an avalanche and then up the other side.
On the far side of the nala the jeep road returned, and while this made things a bit easier, it was more than offset by the monstrous climb up to the town of Feker on the next ridge. You can see the snaking, switchback-ing road as it climbs the ridge (as well as a pretty view of the town of Michir) HERE.
As miserably long and hot as the climb to Feker was, it was MORE than worth it. The out of breath view back down the road was gorgeous, but it still only got third place ordinals. The town itself was the prettiest one I’d yet seen in Pakistan, and I’d chosen (entirely by chance) THE moment to be there. The dozens upon dozens of apricot and almond trees in town were all lit up with blooms, making the place seem more a flower garden than an actual habitation.
Best of all, in my books anyhow, was look at the walk to come: The whole valley was laid out in front of me with the villages below adding just the right touch of colour to the wind-, water- and snow-scoured valley walls and peaks.
All of this lovliness was supplemented by the late morning sun, a cool breeze blowing over the ridge and the shouts of the town’s children. One of these soon joined me walking along the jeep road through town. At first his company was a lot of fun, but before long he had (I’m sad to say, not least because it makes me seem like a big grump) become kind of irritating. This was due to his constant begging for biscuits only I didn’t have, pens I had only two of and needed, money that I admittedly had, but didn’t want to part with. He got even pushier as we walked, pulling the sunglasses out of my pocket and refusing to return them. Thankfully he eventually got tired of this sort of thing and wandered off with a friend to… Well certainly not to bug other tourists, since I was very clearly the only one anywhere near Feker.
There was no way such a minor problem could have soured me on the beautiful place, but even if it had, some other residents of the town would have redeemed it soon after. I was walking past a construction site when a greeting was shouted out in English. Before I knew it I was inside the 80% complete home of a Pakistan Army officer home on leave, sitting down for a talk and cup of chai.
The conversation was wonderful, I learned a lot about life in the Pakistani military, as well a bit more about Nagar district. Sadly the tea didn’t quite meet the same high standard of enjoyability. It looked just like the milk tea I’d enjoyed in several places around the country already, but with one essential difference: it was flavoured with salt rather than sugar. While sipping away at the first cup, keeping I smile on my face, I learned that sat tea was very popular in the Northern Areas. After a few minutes I’d managed, to my relief, to finish the cup, but wasn’t quick enough to forestall its refilling. I really shouldn’t be complaining about this. Or at least not devoting so much space to it, since it WAS part of a great show of hospitality by the officer. Complaints about salt tea end here.
A bit further on in the town I was beckoned inside for tea once again, this time by a teacher at the town’s elementary school. I was going to carry on walking, having just had two cups, but figured I might as well go in for a chat and to learn a bit about the Pakistan eduction system and the troubles of teachers in such isolated spots as Feker. As it turned out, I discovered a lot about these issues, and filled my hosts in on parallels and differences to be found in Canada. The chat lasted long enough that I was very happy to partake in more tea and some biscuits before departing.
From Feker it was all downhill. I mean that more literally than figuratively. Feker WAS the nicest place I visited all day, but the rest of the walk was delightful as well. On the way down the far side of the ridge I met a pair of young boys who followed me along with me as we headed towards their home town of Askordas. They’d been walking all day after an overnight trip to a hot spring that was rumoured to promote good health.
Askordas blended into Sumyar, and though my two young companions sid goodbye, I acquired pair of new ones: two men my age who invited me into the local chai shop for a drink. One of them had to get back to work, but the other fellow was so firmly committed to his duty as a host that he walked me all the way to Ganesh, a small village right before my destination.
On the way there he showed me a local route down the cliff to the river valley that made the descent much quicker. At the bottom we stopped for a rest, and I refilled my water bottles from the beautiful clear stream nearby. Much to my surprise, a couple of minutes after this, the stream had turned from crystal clear to muddy brown as the late afternoon glacial melt rushed down from above all at once.
We crossed the river over a very precarious looking log bridge, and then started back up towards the KKH, which would lead us to Ganesh. (I’d actually been paralleling the KKH all day though on the much more peaceful far side of the valley. Just before arriving in Ganesh we made a stop at the roadside police checkpoint. This wasn’t because I, or he needed to register, or anything of the sort. Rather, the lone policeman manning the checkpoint had invited us in for some talk and yet another cup of tea. The policeman was wonderfully nice and friendly. While talking with him I learned that the Pakistanis have a Gryffon in their mythology as well (the officer’s father’s name translated to “lion-eagle,”) saw old photos of his family, and also had a revalation regarding one of the most common questions I’d been asked in Pakistan.
In discussions about family, I was often asked how many brothers I had, how many sisters and also how many mothers. I’d put this down to a language problem, but when the police officer told me that he’d had three I suddenly realized that it was really an entirely legitimate question in this part of the world.
While on the subject of common conversation topics, I’ll add a few more. The Pakistani people I’d met were very anxious to hear about the differences between their home and India. Given that I’d only been in India for 20 days, and in Pakistan for still less, I couldn’t provide many answers, except that the two nations were more similar than they might think. By way of explanation, I would tell them that there WERE differences, and holding my fingers out in front of me, I’d explain that India and Pakistan were here and here:
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Meanwhile, Canada was over HERE somewhere:
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So perhaps I wasn’t the IDEAL person to ask.
Another very common question was “What do you think of Pakistan?” Following my invariably glowing response, they would say “Please, tell your friends that it is safe here and that Pakistani people are nice.” So, if you hadn’t figured as much already just by reading: Almost all parts of northern Pakistan are very safe and friendly, and its people are supremely nice and hospitable.
Returning to Narrative, I parted ways with my impromptu guide at the town of Ganesh. On the Hill above Ganesh sat my destination, Karimabad, dominated (as it has been for hundreds of years) by Baltit fort. Higher still was the peak of Ultar which provides the towering backdrop to Passu.
It was actually getting rather late. My lesson for the day was, “double the amount of time you think it will take to walk anywhere to account for the time you’ll spend talking with people and being invited in for tea.” The day ended with a tough climb up from Ganesh to Karimabad, which had me delighted to set my pack down and head into the guesthouse dining room to join in on the communal dinner. The dinner was the first time in Pakistan I’d had a chance to really talk with fellow travellers, and it was a very nice change. Before I went to bed, at the request of a pair of Taiwanese ladies translated a description of my day’s walk in the guestbook that had been written by the Frenchman who had preceded me.
As nice as the day had been, I was a bit disappointed when I started to feel a bit sick before bed.
The next morning things had degenerated, and I simply laid in bed until 15:00. It was only by great force of will that I was able to drag myself out of bed for an hour or two to see the town’s main street, lined with poorly patronised souvenier shops (the tourist season in Pakistan didn’t really begin until June, and it was then late April.) So unwell was I feeling that I hardly even managed to enjoy the big communal buffet dinner.
The next day was depressingly similar to the one before it, with the difference that I headed to pharmacy in the morning to procure some medicine for my continuing stomach problem (I was assuming that this was a continuation of my Minapin illness, so pharmaceutical intervention was probably justified.) I was once again amazed by the low cost of (simple) medical care on the subcontinent. A visit with the doctor, my drugs and two packets of Oral Rehydration Solution came out to under 100 rupees. On the way back I climbed up to near the top of the town to get a closer look at Baltit fort, though the building was visible from pretty much any point in town.
By dinner time I was feeling significantly better and was actually able to eat a bit. I also was even more active in conversation (not to say that I wasn’t talkative on previous nights.) I learned that there was an American/Kiwi fellow who was planning on heading up to Ultar Meadow the next morning. I’d wanted to do this walk myself, and agreed to join him, provided my condition continued to improve. By the end of dinner, our party had swelled to include my new Australian friend Danielle, as well as the two Taiwanese women, Fin and Jewel. The status of the restaurant and hotel (both terms used very loosely) at the meadows was unclear. It was still very early, and while several people said they’d be open, it wasn’t certain.
Thankfully I was in fine shape the next morning when we all headed out. The trail followed roads through Karimabad, up to and then past Baltit fort. Beyond the fort was the beautiful back side of the town. The rushing river and terraced fields were made still prettier by the blooming fruit trees all around.
At this point the trail departed the roadways and headed up the Nala towards Ultar Meadows. The trail followed the river and canals rushing down the gorge. The canals were spectacular feats of engineering, leading from the toe of the glacier above to the farm fields we’d passed earlier. Some sections ran along in notches cut out of the cliff face high above us!
The walk was pleasant, but not too tough. Despite my best efforts I found myself occaisionally running off ahead of the others. The ladies remarked that they were happy I’d brought a large pack with food, a tent, sleeping bag and so forth, if only to slow me down. We arriced at the toe of the glacier then carried on along its lateral moraine. Nearing the top we came across a construction party who were busy workign on a new canal to replace one that had been desttroyed by the heaving and creaking of the nearby glacier. They were all wonderfully friendly. One of the party was particularly memorable for what had to be the most impressive mustache I’d ever seen. (Just in case you can’t quite make it out, it’s tucked up behind his ears!)
We arrived at Ultar Meadows after about three hours. Despite the low clouds and gloomy atmosphere, the jagged peaks surrounding the meadows, and especially the Ultar Icefall were impressive sights. In some ways glaciers seem to be almost improved by that kind of weather.
Save for a couple of goats, the place seemed to be deserted. There were a few shepherds’ huts, but no sign of the shepherds themselves. Finally we discovered that one of them WAS actually inhabited. Much to the dismay of my companions, this was not the hotel or restaurant. Rather, it was the shelter being used by the canal workers. Furthermore, with 15 or 20 people sleeping there, it was unlikely there’d be room for any foreign visitors, no matter how hospitible the occupants were feeling.
The two men who had been present shortly disappeared, leaving us all huddled inside their shelter to escape the cool wind outside. While debating what to do, someone suggested that we light a fire, and perhaps even make some tea using the supplies in the shack. I thought this terribly rude, given the likely limited fuel and supplies situation, and said as much, though not all that forcefully. I was relieved when they couldn’t get a fire lit.
In the end my companions headed down the mountain soon after this, leaving me to set up my tent, then go for a walk. I decided to reconnoitre the trail up to Hon Pass, a trip I was considering for the following day. I started climbing through the grass and rock, getting higher and higher. Perhaps halfway up snow started to appear, so I modified my trip, turning off the main route and heading up a small side valley that promised a new angle on the icefall, and perhaps even a look behind Ultar itself. It was roughly at this point when, to my astonishment I saw another person walking around up there. It was a Pakistani man with rubber boots and a shotgun. Gven the extrordinary quiet and emnptiness of the area, this seemed quite a shock. We waved hello at one another, but never quite got close enough to talk.
I reached the high point of my walk, perhaps 3700m, at 16:00 or so, and after admiring the view across to the Nagar Valley and over to the icefall (now beside rather than above me) for a few minutes decided that I ought to head down because A. it was getting late and B. while not actually threatening, the weather didn’t look like it was going to reveal much else.
I returned to my campsite bounding down the trail, reaching it at perhaps 17:30. Upon arriving I found that the canal workers were all back and sitting around prior to dinner. I sat down with them for a few minutes, and they pointed out a few distant brown spots on a cliff far away that were (apparently) ibecies (I think odds are pretty good that the proper plural of Ibex is not Ibecies, but it so amuses me that I’m going to keep calling them that.)
Not long after I returned to the tent and after a dinner of a Mars bar and some dry instant noodles I laid down for sleep. Throughout the night the glacier and icefall kept creaking and crashing. Not perfectly conducive to sleep, but exciting all the same. It also had the side benefit of getting me out of the tent at 02:00 for a look at the moonlit (the sky was almost perfectly clear at night) slopes of Ultar towering above.
Sadly the nighttime view was the best I’d get of the mountain. There were a few patches of blue sky in the morning light, but before long the clouds had returned pretty forcefully, scotching my plan of heading to Hon Pass (no point doing a hard 600m climb when there’ll be nothing to see at the top.)
The canal workers were already gone, but their cooks invited me in for a cup of tea, which I gratefully accepted before heading back down the mountain. Before I left, I returned to find my tent under inspection by a clever looking goat. He probably wasn’t actually THAT clever. If he was, he wouldn’t have been hanging around there after having seen, as I did, one of his compatriots killed and butchered outside the shepherd’s hut above. (The most interesting part of this was probably the cleaning out of the intestines. They were filled with water and then drained a few times, with the little black lumps of yet to be excreted goat droppings floating around inside the clear, stretched out tube on the intestine.
With that pleasant image behind us, I’ll return to the walk down which, while quick was a bit hard on the knees. Just before returning to Passu I realized that the trail gave an entirely different view of Baltit fort than the ones I’d seen before. Without its more recent decorations and adornments visible, the fort looked ancient indeed.
I spent the remainder of the morning sitting in the sun at the guesthouse doing laundry and glancing anxiously upwards at Ultar. If the cloud cleared from it at any point I’d feel quite silly for havung walked down so early. Thankfully while the day was mostly sunny, the mountaintops themselves remained shrouded.
That afternoon I headed out to the nearby village of Altit with Danielle, Jeff and Fin. It was a wonderfully quiet and undisturbed place. We were particularly lucky to be invited into the narrow alleys and cramped laneways of the town centre. Tourists are usually not permitted in, but after being sent away by one man, several older women beckoned us to come back and encouraged us to have a look inside. We wandered through the laneways, eventually following a four year old girl (who’d appointed herself our guide) to the base of Altit fort. The fort was some 800 years old, but at the time was closed to visitors until a 5 year restoration program finishes in 2007.)
As we sat admiring it, we were greeted by a young man who invited us up onto the roof of his house for a look. Afterwards he asked us in to another one of the four homes his family owned for some tea and delicious dry apricots. We sat inside admiring the pretty, very comfortable (lots of fabric and pillows) decoration of the place. He showed us his recent artwork, as well as a selection of needlepoints done by his sister, who’d eoon be rreturning from school. We were even briefly considering hiding in the cupboards and behind columns to surprise her when she arrived. I’m sure that would have been the shock of the year for her: Four odd foreigners entirely unexpectedly jumping out at her as she stepped in the door…
Soon enough we had to be getting back to the hostel for dinner, so we thanked our host profusely and walked back through town, past the very busy local cricket ground and then along the beautiful tree lined road back to Karimabad.
The night was a particularly entertaining one. First because I abosolutely gorged myself on dinner, making up for the previous few nights minimal consumption, and secondly for the card game that took place afterwards.
Danielle, myself, Robert (an older Australian gent who’d spent TWO WEEKS in Karimabad [a lot of people seemed to get stuck there]) as well as two new arrivals, Irish Phil and Australian Nick sat around talking and laughing and playing until late in the night (this was all after our regular post-dinner chocolate/biscuit run to a nearby general store, of course.)
The first game we played was one Phil and Nick called “Dutch Knockers,” since they didn’t know the real name, they’d been taught it by Dutch people, and it involved knocking on the table at key points in the game. It was actually a very interesting hybrid of Euchre and Poker.
After that we switched to poker proper, or at least something like it. This was at Danielle’s suggestion (she was looking for a “less aggressive, more feminine game.” Huh?) Though she wasn’t very familiar with the usual rules of the game, her version WAS poker, I suppose, with a few oddities. The most memorable and amusing of these was her insistence that when cards were laid down each of the players involved should lay them one on the table one at a time saying the word (or sound) “jupe” as he did so. It was actually pretty fun, especially since I got dealt ridiculosuly good cards and quickly cleaned everyone’s clocks.
The next morning was my final one in Karimabad. I woke up, packed and said my farewells to the group (though by no means were these final…) and climbed on a Suzuki for the trip down to the transport centre of Aliabad. Upon arriving I received some disappointing news: the road to my destination, Passu, was blocked by a landslide, and minibuses wouldn’t start departing for at least an hour. So much for an early start.
This gave me a little bit of time to look around Aliabad. The town wasn’t anything particularly special, but was interesting for its status as Karimabad’s “other half.” Karimabad has become such a popular tourist destination (by Pakistani standards) that it’s become prohibitively expensive for any non-tourist business to operate there. Thus, all of these establishments have moved down the road by a few kilometres, meaning that for ordinary, day-to-day, non-tourist needs, its the place to be. I picked up a bag of home-made biscuits and sat down to wait (I don’t know why I kept buying these… While they usually tasted okay, they were invariably a bit stale, and eating too many of them wasn’t entirely pleasant.)
After perhaps 1.5 hours, I was informed that the minibus was ready to go. We all piled in. As per usual, it was miserably difficult to see the beautiful valley as we drove, but I’d get a much better take on “miserable” over the coming hours.
About 40 minutes into the trip we pulled to a stop. We’d arrived at the landslide, but it was far from clear. Vehicles were, one at a time, taking a good run up to the pile of mud and rocks (the slide had been leveled out a bit) and doing their best to make it over.
I walked to the far side, across the slide, and for the first of several times that day managed to plunge my foot into one of the mucky, muddy, icy cold sections of the slide. The only way to clean it off again was in the flow of recently melted ice-water nearby. This was not shaping up pleasantly. Things took a further negative turn when the vehicle before ours in line got stuck halfway over the slide. It was a pickup truck piled high with firewood, and even the dozen or so people who pushed, pulled and dug trying to free it were of no help. I had rolled up my pants to join the “rescue party,” (which comprised more than half of the young men waiting around at the slide) but was assured that they didn’t need my help. I’ll choose to interpret this as concern for the comfort of visitors to Pakistan rather than as a dismissal of my actual usefullness. Finally the driver gave up and started to unload the wood.
My feet were wet and icy cold now, and we didn’t look to be moving any time soon. It couldn’t get much more uncomfortable, could it? Of course it could! It began to rain. First softly, but it soon intensified into a near downpour. After trying to wait it out I headed back across the slide (once again having a little visit with the freezing mud in the process) and jumped, shivering, dripping and dirty into the van.
Miraculously, the rain soon stopped and the truck was freed, though we still had a bit of a wait, as a bulldozed had arrived and they wanted to do some more slide-clearing work before allowing more vehicles across. While I was waiting I did my best to dry out and warm up, and was surprisingly successful, as the had sky cleared quickly after the rain ended. I also did my best not to stare at or think condescending thoughts about the young woman who was having genuine hysterics (sobbing, moaning, hyperventalating) over having got a couple of toes in the same mud that I’d plunged ankle deep into thrice already.
The worst of the discomfort was behind me now, the one small bit remaining came when all of the male passengers had to disembark and walk over an avalanche that had blocked the road some months before and was slowly melting away.
Soon after the avalanche out journey was at an end. It was later than I’d planned, but I was in Passu, the most northerly stop on my journey up the KKH.
Tags: Pakistan
Llew