Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
aspirations. Mr Daoud was also a chess grandmaster. We all played a bit, but Jan
and Voytek were both excellent and at least held their own in a few games. Over
the chess board, they gave him warnings about the Russians, but he remained
hopeful, believing communism would save Afghanistan.
The higher up the valley we climbed, the poorer the villages became. We camped
in places designated by the headman each night and became the evening enter-
tainment for the villagers. They came to watch these strange men who left their
homes to seek riches in the mountains. The children especially gathered around
Alex to dance and shout with joy at the sound of unfamiliar rock music, The
Rolling Stones, The Who, Led Zep. After the third day, the Pamirs fell away across
the distant Soviet regions and we became more enclosed in our own valley.
At the end of the fifth day, we reached a high mountain pasture and pass called
Bandikhan. The goats and animals from lower pastures had yet to arrive. If we car-
ried on, we would be in the fabled land of Kafiristan, the land of the infidels. But to
our right, a massive glacier with a mighty torrent racing from its snout led west.
Rearing above the surrounding hills, a plume from the summit of Bandaka grace-
fully drifted across the sky. 'We have finally seen our mountain,' I wrote in my
notebook, 'a day's march away, disrobing from a sultry covering of cloud, like a
woman before a mirror. It looks equally inviting and fearsome. I understand why
the locals have called it the knuckle of Allah. If we are hit, it will be the wrath of
God. The face will not resist, but it may not relent. The main concerns come from
within us. Fear of death is not the issue, that is just the passing of days, the unveil-
ing of clouds, the end of resistance.'
Early next morning, we climbed loose moraine onto the glacier and set up our
base camp at around 14,000 feet. We had twenty-five days to climb the mountain
and return to Zebak to meet the team for the journey home. The massive north-
east face rose straight off the glacier a mile or so away. For three days we acclimat-
ised, climbing a steep line left of the main face up to a col at 20,000 feet, part of
our intended descent route. We left food and gas and descended the other side of
the mountain into Kafiristan, then back around the mountain in another day.
A week was gone and so was Jan Wolf, banished by Voytek. The bad cough he de-
veloped on our acclimatisation climb got worse, not better. Jan did not want to go
and Voytek had to be ruthless. Alex and I sat some way off pretending to be non-
committal but we knew Voytek was right. Jan left in tears to trek all the way to one
of the Polish camps further up the Wakhan. We told him we hoped he would be
better by the time he arrived; it would take him at least a fortnight to walk.
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We sat and watched the wall for three days. The mountain was real now, not just
the photo Voytek had obsessed over. We all struggled to come to terms with what
